Tweety Language Development Lab

Department of Psychology

Infant and Toddler Research

All of our studies are non-invasive. Most of the infant studies use a paradigm called "headturn preference." Infants participating in one of these studies sit on the lap of their caregiver in a sound-proof booth. They listen to different kinds of passages (either language or music), and they are allowed to listen for as long as they look toward the speaker playing the passage. We measure how long they listen to each kind of passage to determine which type they prefer. Using this technique, we attempt to answer two questions: First, what knowledge of their native language do infants have when they visit us in the laboratory? Second, what can infants learn about a new language in a very short time in the laboratory?

We are also currently running studies for 3-4 year-olds, and bilingual 2-4 year-olds. Please read the descriptions below for more information.

In addition to the following studies run by the Tweety Lab, the Tigger Lab has infant studies running from 6 months to about 31 months, and a 5-year toddler study. Contact the Tigger Child Cognition Lab for more information.


Current Infant Studies:

4 months
For 4-month olds we have two brief studies. The first is a vision study presented by the Visual Perception Lab. An important task for the visual system is shape perception. Dr. Mary Peterson and students of the Visual Perception Lab are interested in knowing whether infants perceive the same shapes as adults when two alternatives are possible. In this study, infants will see an eight region display with alternating black convex and white concave regions. The purpose is to see what shapes infants prefer to see to determine when infants' shape perception become adult-like, since it is known that adults perceive either the concave or the convex shapes, but not both. This study is currently run by Chewie Mon of the Visual Perception Lab.

The second study for 4-month olds is part of a larger project by graduate student Colin Dawson, investigating infants' abilities to learn abstract relationships in short sequences of syllables and tones (e.g., the first two elements in the sequence must be identical). Previous findings suggest that between 4 and 8 months, infants become attuned to the kinds of relationships that are important for different kinds of sounds (e.g., language or music), and will more easily learn relationships that are similar to what they've encountered before in that domain. The current 4-month-old study is investigating what factors affect learning before this transition, such as how complicated individual syllables are, and whether boundaries between syllables are clearly marked.

7.5 months
The current 7.5-month-old study is run by graduate student Colin Dawson. This study explores whether 7.5-month-olds can learn a "grammatical" pattern in sequences of musical tones. Previous findings suggest that 4-month-olds successfully learn this pattern, and 7.5-month-olds learn it when the sequences are syllables instead of tones. Will the older infants be able to apply the same abilities to learning about music that they use in learning about language? Or will the ability become selective to language if it is not reinforced in the infant's musical environment?

9 months
For 9-month-olds, we also have two brief studies. We know from previous research in the Tweety Lab that 9-month-olds are not able to learn a pattern that does not occur in any language.  In that study, infants failed to learn that syllables starting in 't' are stressed. The current study asks if 9-month-olds can learn a pattern that does not occur in any language, but that involves a sound that is not part of English - Spanish rolled 'r'.  We predict that infants exposed only to English can learn that syllables starting with rolled 'r' are stressed, but infants exposed to Spanish will not learn this pattern.

Our second 9-month infant study is a vision study presented by the Visual Perception Lab. An important task for the visual system is shape perception. Dr. Mary Peterson and Dannah Raz of the Visual Perception Lab are interested in knowing whether infants perceive the same shapes as adults when two alternatives are possible. In this study, infants will see an eight region display with alternating black convex and white concave regions. The purpose is to see what shapes infants prefer to see to determine when infants' shape perception become adult-like, since it is known that adults perceive either the concave or the convex shapes, but not both. This study is run by Chewie Mon of the Visual Perception Lab.

17 months
We know that some properties of a new language make it easier to learn.  In the current 17-month study, we are asking whether 17-month-olds can detect which form of a language is easier to learn by asking if infants exposed to an easier version pay more attention than infants exposed to a harder version.  If they can, we will have evidence that infants can monitor their own learning rate, allowing them to devote more attention to the most productive learning tasks.


Current Toddler Studies:

Bilingual: 2-4 years
Many languages, including Spanish, use gender marking on nouns. For example, la sala (the room) has feminine gender, while el gato (the cat) has masculine gender. We know that adults make use of gender in both language comprehension and production. We also know that children learning Spanish are able to make use of gender marking in comprehension. The current study addresses the question of whether 2-4 year olds exposed to Spanish use gender in language production and whether the degree of gender use in production is influenced by the degree of Spanish exposure in Spanish-English bilingual children. This study is designed and run by Brittany Lindsey.

En español: Muchos idiomas, incluso el español, marcan el género gramatical en los nombres. Por ejemplo, la sala tiene género femenino mientras que el gato tiene género masculino. Sabemos que los adultos usan el género tanto en la comprensión auditiva como en la producción del lenguaje. También sabemos que los niños que están aprendiendo el español utilizan el género gramatical en la comprensión. Este estudio pretende contestar la pregunta de si los niños de 2-4 años expuestos al español usan el género en la producción o no y también si el uso del género en la producción depende de la cantidad de tiempo que el niño bilingüe (español-inglés) está expuesto al español o no. Este estudio es diseñado e implementado por Brittany Lindsey.
3.5 year-old Abby
3.5 years
The 3.5-year preschool study, designed by Frances Balcomb, looks at children's metamemory, or awareness of what they remember. More specifically, this study examines whether young children can tell when they remember or have forgotten something they have recently learned, and if they can act strategically with this information. In this study, toddlers watch a five-minute video to learn some animal-object pairs and then play a matching game on the computer. This study is currently being run by Evelyn Jaramillo.
4 years
In this study for 4 year-olds, we are trying to understand how slight differences in the way that words are said to children helps them develop a stronger and faster ability to produce words on their own. So far, we've found that 4 year-olds can repeat a word faster and more accurately if they've heard it from 10 different people rather than just one person. We are now extending this research to determine if this "10 talker" effect extends to new words, word pairs, and syllables. This study, which was a part of post-doc Peter Richtsmeier's dissertation, is currently being run by Brianna McMillan.