EARLY CHILDHOOD COGNITION LAB NEWSLETTER
Fall 2014 I Volume 6, Issue 2 2
WELCOME! Fall 2014 has been a
fun and productive year for the ECC
Lab. Many research studies have
been going on and some are almost
wrapping up. We would like to
thank all the wonderful Sciencenter
staff, teachers, parents, and
children who have made our
research possible. Our gratitude
also extends to our team of
graduate students and research
assistants.
ONGOING PROJECTS
BILINGUAL STUDY: Graduate students Carissa
Kang and Alice Zhao have been working on a
study focusing on how children view choice.
For this new study in particular, they are
interested in how language and culture
influence children's concept of choice, and are
recruiting Mandarin-English bilinguals. This
study involves reading short stories to children
about choices across different contexts, and
asking them questions about whether or not
the characters in the stories are able to make
choices.
Carissa and Alice are grateful for the
participation of the children and parents in
their study in Fall 2014, and will continue to
recruit more Mandarin-English bilingual
children in Spring 2014. If you have a bilingual
child (Mandarin-English), please feel free to
contact Carissa (ck577@cornell.edu) or Alice
(xz437@cornell.edu). We look forward to
having you join us in our study!
THANKS TO OUR PARTNERS!
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All Saints Elementary (Syracuse, NY)
Cayuga Heights Elementary School (Ithaca, NY)
Coddington Road (Ithaca, NY)
Community Nursery School (Ithaca, NY)
Cornell Child Care Center (Ithaca, NY)
Cortland Child Development Center (Cortland,
NY)
Dr. Robert Corey Child Care Center (Cortland,
NY)
Fall Creek Elementary School (Ithaca, NY)
Here We Grow (Cortland, NY)
Immaculate Conception School (Ithaca, NY)
Ithaca Community Childcare Center (Ithaca,
NY)
Learning Adventure Day Care (Cortland, NY)
Northeast Elementary School (Ithaca, NY)
Northeast Kids Count (Ithaca, NY)
Sciencenter (Ithaca, NY)
St. Paul’s Preschool (Ithaca, NY)
SUNY Cortland Childcare Center (Cortland, NY)
The Gingerbread House of Syracuse (Syracuse,
NY)
The Seed Center (Ithaca, NY)
UCNS (Ithaca, NY)
BE SURE TO VISIT THE SCIENCENTER!
601 1st Street
Ithaca, NY 14850
Phone: (607) 272-0600
www.sciencenter.org
ONGOING PROJECTS CONTINUED...
IMITATION STUDY: This past semester the imitation
group (Yue Yu, Kimberly Senko, Alicia Ramirez, Jennifer
Lambert, Maria Lee, Nancy Ha, Swetha Aribindi)
continued to conduct the longitudinal study on
imitation. This study aims to investigate how children
imitate in various novel situations, as well as how their
imitation relates to other aspects of development, such
as their understanding of physical laws, other people's
intentions, social norms / conventions, etc. Results
from children's first visit showed that some children are
more likely to copy actions that are associated with an
external goal, while some other children just enjoy
copying all actions. These individual differences are also
associated with other aspects of development, such as
their understanding of other people's thoughts, or their
sharing behavior.
COMBINING RESEARCH & LEARNING AT THE
SCIENCENTER: Kelly Yang, Bertilia Trieu, Jae Lee,
Rachel Minton, Danielle Bubniak, Anna Hedgepeth,
and Meredith Nelson have been working to create a
scavenger hunt game at the Sciencenter! This game
will be part of a new study that applies theories from
the lab to the organic and unpredictable real world.
They hope to learn more about how parents and
children interact at Sciencenter exhibits and to guide
children's learning about a specific concept. Children
ages 4-7 and their primary caretakers visiting the
Sciencenter will have the chance to participate in this
game in spring 2015. The team members would like to
thank the Sciencenter staff, parents, and children who
have helped this study come to be. We hope you will
join in the fun, too!
TWO CHILD STUDY: We are now in the process of finishing our data collection. Children enjoy building toys in our study
and we have about 12 pairs of children left to recruit! After they meet and play together, we ask children whether they
would choose their partner if they had another opportunity to play a similar game. We found that children are more
likely to choose their partner if they also judged that their partner knew a lot about building the toys and if the partner
was better at building the toys! So preschool children take into account the knowledge state and ability of their peers
when evaluating them as play mates, and choose to play with children who they are more likely to learn from!
OUR NEW LAB MEMBERS!
My name is Meredith Nelson and I’m a
Biology and Society major. I work on the
Sciencenter project. We study how children
relate different objects based on their
characteristics and properties.
My name is Alice Zhao. I'm a first
year PhD in Human Development.
I'm now working with Carissa on a
study focusing on how bilingual
children view choice.
My name is Rachel Minton. I began working
on the Sciencenter project in Professor
Kushnir's childhood cognition seminar. I
joined ECC lab to continue working on the
Sciencenter project, and to dive deeper into
childhood cognition in other projects.
My name is Danielle Bubniak, a
senior in Human Development
concentrating in Cognitive
Development. I work with Kelly and
Jae to study the impacts of museum
signage on children's conversations
and how children use decision
making through storytelling.
My name is Nicole Calautti. I’m a Human
Biology, Health, and Society major. I work
with Chris, studying children's collaborative
play. Working in the lab has helped me to
learn more about child cognitive and social
development and behavior.
My name is Ashani Ranwala. I enjoy
working with children, and see it as
a good opportunity to get involved
in hands-on learning as part of the
Two Child Study.
Early Childhood Cognition Lab
Department of Human Development
Martha Van Rensselaer, Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853
Email: ecclab@cornell.edu
Phone: (607) 254-6457