Monday, February 11, 2008

Lab Rat

Not the greatest picture, but I guess its better than nothing.

Today after school we went over to Stanford's Learning Lab to participate in a child development study on object permanance. (For the uninitiated, that's the idea that an object still exists if you can't see it. Its a startling concept for a little guy!) Anthony was in a great mood. Before the study started he charmed the graduate students with his big eyes and bright smile.

For the study, he sat on my lab and watched bright objects float around a screen with sound effects. The objects would periodically disappear, and reappear on the other side of a box. They videotaped him watching the show. They were pretty impressed with his attention span--he made it through the entire test, about 5 minutes, which is pretty good for a four month old.

At the end of the study they gave him a toy to take home and asked if we'd be willing to participate in more studies in the future. I said sure, it was kind of interesting and Anthony seemed to enjoy it.
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1 comment:

Amelia said...

It's funny, I just received a letter today from Stanford asking if we were interested in participating in such test. I was about to reply, so, I'm glad to read that Anthony had a positive experience already.
Amelia