We are looking for monolingual English families of 12- to 16-month-old infants.

• We are currently working on a new study, and we're almost ready for it! In this study, we want to determine whether words from other languages can be associated with a new object.

Typically, all languages across the world have a link between sound and its meaning. For example, the actual word 'cat' is a 3 letter word. In linguistics, we write it this way: /kæt/ and we call each sound a phone: /k/ as in 'kite', /æ/ as in 'ant' /t/ as in 'tack'. That is, if we have the word 'cat', and we know that k, æ, and t are used in other words (like 'kite', 'ant', and 'tack') we find that the word 'cat' has meaning, but the phones are arbitrary.  Most of the words in the world's languages are arbitrary. That is, there is no characteristic of 'cat' that links to the letter or phone of a word: there is nothing about the whiskers, the paws, the fur, or the movement. We call a 'cat' as an arbitrary label. 

Purpose

• • The purpose of this study is to determine whether sound-meaning links can help infants learn new, arbitrary words.

Participants

• • We are looking for monolingual English families of 12- to 16-month-old infants. 

Duration

• • A visit at the Little Magpies lab typically takes about 1 hour. Within that time, we invite you settle in our reception area while we explain the study, the procedure, and ask any questions. Completing the study itself will take approximately 10 minutes.    

Procedures

• • We will bring you and your child to the room. 

  • Caregivers will use headphones while your child will be next to you in a highchair. 

  • You are welcome to soothe your child by smiling, holding hands and rubbing their back, but please do not direct or talk to your child during the study.  We want your child to be happy. 

  • Once the study is finished, we will help you with the highchair and your headphones and we will debrief in the reception room.

    Also!

• Let us know if you bring a sibling so that we can entertain your child during the study.

• We have a large washroom (unisex) with changing table.

• If you like, you can bring small snacks to the lab (e.g., Cheerios, oranges, apples, cookies). Please avoid peanut or tree-nuts (sesame seeds, coconuts are fine - members of our lab team have nut allergies).