Lab/Home studies

Email miami.owl.lab@gmail.com or call us at 305-284-9564 to sign up your child scientist to participate!

In our lab, we’re interested in understanding how children learn new words and recognize familiar objects. We’re especially interested in how individual differences in children’s vocabulary knowledge can lead to differences in what children remember about new words. To answer these questions, we have studies exploring children's knowledge and categorization of objects that they can already name (e.g., 'banana') and of novel objects for which we teach them a novel name (e.g., 'wug').

We are currently recruiting families to participate in the following studies:

Multisensory study: This study is for children 18-60 months old. It’s a remote study that you can do from home with your child using your computer camera and zoom. Children will watch brief movies of people talking and objects bouncing to help us explore how children understand how the sounds they hear match with the video they see. This study requires 1 1-hour session scheduled online. We’re excited to collaborate with researchers at Florida International University and across the country on this project! Email the OWL Lab to participate!

Play And Learning across a Year (PLAY project): This study is for children 12-24 months old. We’re interested in understanding the behaviors of infants and mothers during natural interactions in the home. This study involves a home visit to your home in which we will video record you and your child as you interact and go about everyday routines. We’re excited to collaborate with researchers at NYU and across the country on this new project! Email the OWL Lab to participate!

Check back for more details about an upcoming study on children’s word learning:

Word Learning study: This study is for children 18-36 months old. We're interested in how children remember new words. Children will be shown both familiar objects (e.g., cup) and made up ones for which we will teach them a novel name (e.g., wug). We'll then test what children remember about the made up objects (e.g., do they remember their color). This study requires 1 visit to the lab and takes about 30 minutes.