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Counterfactual Processing in Children and Adults

Run by Lucy Li

 

This project investigates how children and adults process sentences like "If I had studied last night, then I would have aced that quiz". These statements are known as counterfactuals, and require people to think about hypothetical and factual representations of reality at the same time. The goal is to see how children might process counterfactuals differently from adults, and the age at which they can understand them in an adult-like manner.

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Metaphorical Reasoning Skills in Young Children

Run by Claudia Raihert

 

Metaphors are common in everyday speech, e.g., “Time flies!” or “Sam is a pig!”, but the ability to understand metaphors was traditionally considered a “late” skill, acquired in early adolescence. Even young preschoolers are able to understand metaphors that draw on familiar concepts. We are currently developing an interactive paradigm to further test how young children use linguistic context to guide their comprehension.

Event Descriptions on Speech and Gesture

Run by Christiana Moser

 

Languages of the world use different linguistic strategies to describe actions and activities. Do children use speech and gestures to describe actions and activities in a way that is more similar to each other, or more similar? to adults who speak the languages they are learning This will help us learn about the relationship between the languages we speak and how we perceive the world, and how this changes throughout language learning.

Why participate in Research?

It’s never too early to discover the wonders of language and science!  From your own home, you and your child can contribute to research through an activity that is designed to be fun.

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