Izzy studies

This is a post that should have gone up months ago, but has sadly sat in my drafts folder for a while. While I am in Spain, I thought that I would schedule a few posts ahead of time so that those of you that are bored at work would still have something to read. Enjoy!

When CP and I took a few baby classes (infant CPR, breastfeeding, etc) there was always information about studies that Izzy could participate in at a local university once she was born. I was a sociology major in college and thought it would be pretty cool to help a few graduate students out with their studies so I signed us up.

Izzy participated in her first study when she was 3.5 months old. The study had her look at pictures on a big screen. The pictures were either of a dinosaur or a fish with sounds that made her want to look at the screen. The study was on whether at her young age she could put the animals in different categories (she could!).

Less than two months later she did two studies on the same day. One of the studies was listening to what looked like an M&M talk in a normal voice to what looked like old cell phone service bars which would move up and down when it spoke (in beeping sounds). After a couple of conversations between the M&Ms and the bars the screen changed to just the bars and their beeping sounds. The point of this study was to see whether Izzy at almost 6 months old could tell that it was a different language. She squirmed a bit during this study so it was hard to tell.

The second study that day was about impossible shapes. For instance- there would be a line that would move behind a square on the screen and you would only see the parts of the line that weren't blocked by the square. That was considered "normal" or "possible." But the screen then showed impossible things like the line going behind the square and missing a different part of the line that you should have seen (it's hard to describe). If Izzy stared at the "impossible" event longer (which she did), it was because her brain recognized that it was not normal. It's amazing that at almost six months she could already figure that out!

The final study that Izzy participated in was another language study after she turned six months old. I was sent four different instrumental songs- a jazz song, a piano song, a trumpet song, and another one that I can't remember. For a couple of weeks I was supposed to play any one of the songs the prescribed times per week to Izzy while she was calm and paying attention (I generally did it before bed while she was nursing). Interspersed into the songs every 30 seconds/1 minute or so were lemur sounds. It was a little jolting at first because you would be listening to this nice instrumental song and then suddenly you would hear high pitched shrieking, but Izzy didn't seem to mind it and would be very curious (especially in the beginning) at the sounds coming out of my phone. When we finally went in to do the study similar music was played with the lemur sounds. The purpose was to investigate the role of experience in how infants link sounds with meaning during language and conceptual development.

Each time Izzy and I went in to do a study she could get a onesie (we only took one once) and a free book. She also got a certificate that "earned" her a degree every time she participated in a study (for instance she received a Bachelor of Arts degree when she was only three months old)! It was really cute.

In the end, we had to stop doing the studies because it was a 30 minute trip to the school each way and it was always a rush to get there after work but Izzy got a few books that she loves and she earned the title of Professor after her last study! If a local university has a program like this I would highly recommend it. It was fascinating for me to learn how much babies really can figure out at such a young age and I was glad that I could help out the graduate program with their studies.

Have you every participated in a study at your local college/university?