Monday was our latest UMD Infant Study. There was a little bit of a mix up about which tests Abby had completed, but they figured it out and we got down to work.
The first study used an infrared eye tracker while Abby watched a short video. The video was shown nine times - each time a candy-machine-claw picked up a grey ball and dropped it in a bucket, then a red ball and dropped it in the bucket, and then a blue ball and dropped it in the bucket - NINE times. Afterwards, the researcher showed me what the computer tracked her eyes doing - as she watched the video, she started anticipating where the claw was going next!
The second study was more simple - a researcher placed a small colored plastic block (alternating square, round, triangle) in a CLEAR plastic box. She opened the box, took the block out, and then set the box on one side of the board and the block on the opposite. She pushed the board towards Abby and then we waited for Abby to grab either the block or the box. The first couple times, Abby just waited patiently for the researcher to do something else. When the researcher removed the box and block without further demonstration, Abby finally began grabbing the block because obviously, there was nothing fun to play with left in the CLEAR plastic box.
I often wonder how other infants do in the same study - but I may have to wait several years before any of these results get published. To me, Abby is amazingly intelligent!
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I love stuff like this. We took both the kids to the language labs at Purdue when they were littler. At 15 or 18 months they had me fill out a checklist with all the words MG knew - they didn't believe me when I checked almost all of them, but she honestly knew them all (and more!).
It's so much fun to watch how their little minds work. And it helps the college kids, too. Does your lab give you little books as a thank you? We got about a dozen books from participating. Good stuff.
Amy @ http://prettybabies.blogspot.com
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