Recent Studies
Overview
The Child Study Centre is currently running a number of different studies. In each of these studies, Philip Zelazo, the lab director, is the principal supervisor. Our research director Helena Gao helps to coordinate and organize the studies. Below is a list of current studies and their investigators.
Two Tasks of Affective Decision Making
Subjects' Age Range: 18- to 35- year-olds
Principal Investigator: Kimberly Sarah Chiew
Other: Keith Happaney, Donaya Hongwanishkul
Brief Description: My research in the Cognitive Development Lab focuses
on the relationship between affective decision making and working memory,
both associated with the workings of the orbitofrontal cortex of the brain.
I am studying this relationship by comparing performance on various decision-making
tasks under different conditions of concurrent working memory load (i.e.,
by having subjects perform memory tasks of different levels of difficulty
as they are completing the decision-making tasks). With this study I hope
to contribute to our understanding of activities and interactions within
the orbitofrontal cortex.
Teaching Children How to Use Rules
Subjects' Age Range: 36 months
Principal Investigator: Stacey Espinet
Other: Krista Merry
Brief Description: This study investigates the development of rule use strategies
through the training of these skills in 3-year-olds. Children will be asked
to participate in four sessions separated by one-week intervals. In the
initial and final sessions, children will be asked to sort cards according
to two rules, in order to measure their pre- and post-training card sort
abilities. During the two intervening sessions, children will be given various
types of training. Determining whether it is possible to train such skills
in 3-year-old children will aid us in understanding the cognitive and neural
mechanisms that underlie them. Understanding these mechanisms will also
clarify ways that educators may foster the healthy development of these
skills.
Understanding Children's Flexible Interpretation of Adjectives
Subjects' Age Range: 36 months to 60 months
Principal Investigator: Dr. Helena Hong Gao
Other: Kaya de Barbaro
Brief Description: This study investigates the circumstances in which 3-
to 5-year-old children can interpret adjectives flexibly. For instance,
we are interested in finding out if young children can interpret adjectives
such as big and little either in relation to a norm (as in "this hat is
big for a hat") or in relation to another present object (as in "this hat
is bigger than that hat"). We are also interested in determining whether
preschoolers can switch flexibly from one interpretation to another. The
current study includes a number of experiments that can be divided into
two main parts. The first part is a hands-on activity where children will
be asked to sort objects of various sizes, such as chalk and hockey sticks.
The second part takes place on a computer. Children will be presented with
a series of pictures where they will be asked to identify which ones are
"big" and which ones are "little". The first part of the experiment has
been finished and currently we are conducting the second part with children
whose age range is between 36 and 48 months.
Time of Day Study
Subjects' Age Range: 11 to 14 years old
Principal Investigator:Constance Hahn
Other: Ursula Wiprzycha
Brief Description: This study focuses on how time of day may influence children's
thinking across the day. Our participants are between 11 and 14 years old.
The study is divided into two components. The first part is a telephone-administered
questionnaire, which sees whether children prefer morning or evening hours
in general. Based on the questionnaire, some of the participants are invited
to the Child Study Centre for a follow-up study. The follow-up study takes
place either in the morning or in the afternoon, so to parallel the time
they would usually be at school. During the session, children perform some
tasks to look at their general verbal and non-verbal ability. Also, they
play some computer games that look at their ability to regulate and control
their thought and action. Finally, the accompanying parent and the child
are asked to fill out questionnaires regarding sleeping habits and behaviour
in general. The total time for an in-lab experiment for this study is about
1.5 hours.
Children's Temperament (EDA)
Subjects' Age Range: 36 months to 60 months
Principal Investigators: Keith Happaney & Colin DeYoung
Brief Description: Any parent with more than one child knows that no matter
how similarly you treat them, children can be very different from one another,
even when they are twins. They simply seem to have different dispositions
or "temperaments." One way that people with different temperaments differ
is in the decisions that they make. Research has shown that adults with
different temperaments make different types of decisions, with some more
likely to take risks than others. We are interested in whether the same
connection between temperament and decision-making found in adults also
exists in children. We are conducting a study in which children are asked
to play a card game (the child equivalent of the "Iowa Gambling Task") where
they will choose cards from among two decks. The decks differ in terms of
reward (such as winning a candy) and losses (a candy is taken away from
the pile of those already won). By the end of the game, all children end
up with the same number of rewards, but one high-stakes deck has high rewards
and high losses whereas the other low-stakes deck has low rewards and low
losses. We want to see if preschool children's choice of decks is related
to their temperament, with more fearful children choosing the low-stakes
deck. We are also interested in the way that children's temperament is related
to their reactions, different situations, such as those including unfamiliar
objects and people.
Picture Properties and Flexible Thinking
Subjects' Age Range: 36 months
Principal Investigator: Stella Felix Lourenco
Others: Dana Liebermann, Gwen Potter, Helena Hong Gao
Brief Description: This study is designed to address preschoolers= sensitivity
to the content and formal properties of pictures, using a simple match-to-sample
task. In this task, children are shown a sample picture (e.g., a blurry
cat) and then asked to select 2 other pictures (from a set of 4) that match
the sample picture according to content (e.g., another cat) or formal property
(e.g., another blurry picture). Preliminary findings reveal that 5-year-olds
have little difficulty matching pictures according to content or form, whereas
3-year-olds have more difficulty, tending to match only on the basis of
content.
Labeling Dimensional Change Card Sort
Subjects' Age Range: 36 months to 60 months
Principal Investigator:Gwen Potter
Others: Ming Lee, Dana Libermann
Brief Description: The Dimensional Change Cart Sorting (DCCS) task involves
a card game in which children are presented with cards consisting of pictures
that vary in colour and shape. Examples of cards include red rabbits and
blue boats. Children are asked to match and sort the cards to targets based
on either colour or shape. Following a set number of trials children will
be asked to sort the cards by the other dimension (e.g., if children first
sorted the cards by colour they would be asked to switch to sorting by shape).
The current study also asks children to label the specific dimensions of
the cards by asking them questions, such as "What colour is this?" We are
interested in how labeling either the relevant or irrelevant dimension,
with respect to the sorting rule, will either facilitate or impair children's
ability to switch from sorting by one dimension to the other.Three- to Four-Year-Old
Children’s Rule Switching in Context of Affective Stimuli
Subjects' Age Range: 3- to 4-year-olds
Principal Investigator: Li Qu
Others: Andreea Boston, Sophia Ho, Carrie Chen, Shintula Wijeya
Brief Descrition: Most 3- to 4-year-olds, when first sorting cards by "color"
dimension, later tend to have difficulty switching to sort cards by "shape"
dimension. In recent studies, photographs of faces were used instead of
normal objects. We found that compared to the task using normal objects,
3-years tended to perform better on the Emotional Faces version of the task
which uses photographs of emotional faces and requires children to sort
cards first by emotion and then by gender, though they did not perform significantly
better on the Neutral Faces version of the task which uses photographs of
neutral faces and requires one to sort cards by gender and age. Ongoing
studies are exploring why children perform better with affective stimuli.
Development of Theory of Mind and Executive Function in 3- to 5-year-old European Canadian, Chinese Canadian, and Chinese Children
Subjects' Age Range: 3- to 5-year olds
Principal Investigator: Li Qu
Others: Cindy Yip, Nicole Recel, Angela Prencipe, Dr. Li Hong, Gao Shan,
Dr. Helena Hong Gao
Brief Description: This study, using a cross-cultural design, aims to investigate
experiential influences on the development of theory of mind (ToM) and executive
function (EF). In particular, this study is investigating the effects of
the following variables on development of ToM and EF during the preschool
years: cultural/ethnic background, language, and family size. Standardized
measures of verbal and non-verbal abilities tasks are being used, as well
as ToM and EF games. For example, in one of the games, the child will be
given two options concerning three different treats, smarties, stickers,
and pennies. One of the options will be to wait for these treats until the
end of the session, while the other option will be to have them immediately.
Results may provide insights into the relation among ToM, EF, and culture
and environments.
Circadian Rhythms and Affective Picture Processing in Young Adults
Subjects' Age Range: 25- to 35- year-olds
Principal Investigator: Li Qu
Others: Cindy Yip, Paige Wethaufer, Dr. Adam Anderson, Dr. Martin Ralph
Brief Description: This project aims to investigate the relation between
circadian rhythms and affective processing. In the current study, we hope
to investigate 1) whether affective processing varies across the day? 2)
Is there a synchrony effect in affective processing? and 3) how do circadian
rhythms influences the dynamics between affective processing and cognitive
processing, given that affective processing interacts with various types
of cognitive activity. The answers to these questions will provide more
information about why (and how) circadian rhythms affect both emotional
and cognitive function. Furthermore, research on these issues will provide
knowledge about our physiological activities, and help us to evaluate and
regulate our cognitive and affective functioning.