Monday, February 21, 2011
Yesterday was the Psychology day. I visited a grad student, Erin Robbins, who helps to conduct studies about the morality of little kids - infants and 3-5 year olds - that includes questions related to their sense of fairness, and justice, and how they understand probability and risk. We spoke about differences in cultures, and she showed me videos of kids playing simple games like when they have to split 9 poker chips two ways. Miss Robbins was very adamant about saying that she didn’t use words that could have an influence on the kid’s decision, like “share” or “divide” or “give.” The main question was, would the kids immediately split 5-4 in favor or them, or the other way around?
I saw some videos where the child would take all for himself, no questions asked, and some where they would share. Mostly, the kid would take four for himself and give five to the instructor. I saw one particularly sweet video, where the student asked me to predict how a five year old girl would split nine animal crackers. I said the girl would probably take five and give four. I didn’t even consider it; it seemed very logical. Without a moment’s hesitation, though, she took four and gave four, and the ninth she split soundly down the middle. It gives me hope.
I also talked to another woman who studies race bias in small children. She mainly focuses on white/black, though recently has begun integrating Hispanics into the group. She would give the children dolls. There were white girls and black girls, white guys and black guys, with their hair covered so that hair color wouldn’t be a problem at all. To my surprise, I found that, beyond gender - girls preferring girls - boys preferred blacks and girls liked whites. She said it wasn’t 50/50, more like 60/40 whites, but still that shocked me! Not that there was a preference for one race, but that it was divided by gender.
I participated in some tests, pretending to be a little kid, and I was absolutely fascinated. They were simple games, like the splitting one I mentioned earlier. On one such test, the objective was to test the little kid’s ability to predict risk and probability and act accordingly. There were two square spinners. On Spinner A, there were three chips per side, and on Spinner B, there were six on one side and six on the opposite side. First, the child was asked to make a decision for himself. If he spun on Spinner A, he was guaranteed to have 3 chips, but Spinner B could get him 6 chips, easy. While the Law of Averages dictates that both have an equal probability of getting 3 chips, kids don’t think of it that way. Reckless, or curious, or competitive kids took Spinner B. More cautious, logical, or simply uneasy kids chose Spinner A for themselves. Generally, however, these 3-5 year olds chose Spinner A.
When asked to make the decision for another person, a stranger whom the children will never meet, the kids usually chose Spinner B. I personally would have done it out of curiosity - would the person succeed? - but there were a variety of reasons. Some wanted the stranger to have less than them. Some wanted to help the stranger get more. Kids from down South, like in Samoa, usually picked Spinner A for both. On the subject of cultures, we spoke some more. Let’s say a little kid got a jar they couldn’t open that had a simply fantastic toy inside. A Japanese kid, for instance, would almost never ask for help opening the jar. It was a 2 out of 40 ratio. The American kids, for instance, would be much more likely to give up after five seconds and ask for help. Does this say something about our culture? I believe it does.
We also discussed mindfulness, and the affect on small children. I have some experiences with mindfulness, and have found that it increases concentration and memory and attention span. For little kids, we don’t know much about that. We also talked about the Psychology of writing - that is, she informed me of its existence and told me to look it up. I will, gladly.
After this, I spoke briefly to Dr. Namy. We discussed how infants learn language. Let’s say there was a strange new thing on the table. If I pointed to it and said “Miskit” repeatedly, you’d get the idea that the strange new thing was a Miskit. But, kids don’t learn language solely from having their parents point at everything and saying what it is. That would take years and years. Instead, there are a few theories: Nature/Nurture. Nature says that kids are practically born with the ability to learn a language, while Nurture says the kids pick it up from everything around them. I did a very difficult test where four made up objects flashed on screen. Four made up words in random order were said as I stared in confusion at the strange pictures. Many sets were repeated, sometimes with new sets of objects and sometimes with a few similar ones. I found myself getting lost as the gibberish meshed in my brain. I could hardly differentiate the words, let alone pair them to strange objects I forgot promptly as new ones were flashed on screen. There were a few words I paired with objects (correctly or not I still do not know). For example, something that sounded like “rachet” I paired with a funny looking gear thing, just because I associate ratchets with gears.
If this is how little kids learn language, it truly is a miracle.
We also spoke of Rosetta Stone and its claim to teach language to adults similarly to how babies learn it. Their claims, Dr. Namy assured me, were lies. Maybe not completely. Certainly, associating pictures and objects with words is how babies do it, in part. But we had an interesting discussion on why it doesn’t work. When you’re sitting at your computer, trying to remember how to order french fries at the restaurant, if you mess up you can always restart and try again. In a restaurant, if you screw up, you can’t do much about it except for trying to redeem yourself by getting it right the second time.
All in all?
Today was very informative.
I wouldn’t mind working there as a grad student :)
Yesterday was the Psychology day. I visited a grad student, Erin Robbins, who helps to conduct studies about the morality of little kids - infants and 3-5 year olds - that includes questions related to their sense of fairness, and justice, and how they understand probability and risk. We spoke about differences in cultures, and she showed me videos of kids playing simple games like when they have to split 9 poker chips two ways. Miss Robbins was very adamant about saying that she didn’t use words that could have an influence on the kid’s decision, like “share” or “divide” or “give.” The main question was, would the kids immediately split 5-4 in favor or them, or the other way around?
I saw some videos where the child would take all for himself, no questions asked, and some where they would share. Mostly, the kid would take four for himself and give five to the instructor. I saw one particularly sweet video, where the student asked me to predict how a five year old girl would split nine animal crackers. I said the girl would probably take five and give four. I didn’t even consider it; it seemed very logical. Without a moment’s hesitation, though, she took four and gave four, and the ninth she split soundly down the middle. It gives me hope.
I also talked to another woman who studies race bias in small children. She mainly focuses on white/black, though recently has begun integrating Hispanics into the group. She would give the children dolls. There were white girls and black girls, white guys and black guys, with their hair covered so that hair color wouldn’t be a problem at all. To my surprise, I found that, beyond gender - girls preferring girls - boys preferred blacks and girls liked whites. She said it wasn’t 50/50, more like 60/40 whites, but still that shocked me! Not that there was a preference for one race, but that it was divided by gender.
I participated in some tests, pretending to be a little kid, and I was absolutely fascinated. They were simple games, like the splitting one I mentioned earlier. On one such test, the objective was to test the little kid’s ability to predict risk and probability and act accordingly. There were two square spinners. On Spinner A, there were three chips per side, and on Spinner B, there were six on one side and six on the opposite side. First, the child was asked to make a decision for himself. If he spun on Spinner A, he was guaranteed to have 3 chips, but Spinner B could get him 6 chips, easy. While the Law of Averages dictates that both have an equal probability of getting 3 chips, kids don’t think of it that way. Reckless, or curious, or competitive kids took Spinner B. More cautious, logical, or simply uneasy kids chose Spinner A for themselves. Generally, however, these 3-5 year olds chose Spinner A.
When asked to make the decision for another person, a stranger whom the children will never meet, the kids usually chose Spinner B. I personally would have done it out of curiosity - would the person succeed? - but there were a variety of reasons. Some wanted the stranger to have less than them. Some wanted to help the stranger get more. Kids from down South, like in Samoa, usually picked Spinner A for both. On the subject of cultures, we spoke some more. Let’s say a little kid got a jar they couldn’t open that had a simply fantastic toy inside. A Japanese kid, for instance, would almost never ask for help opening the jar. It was a 2 out of 40 ratio. The American kids, for instance, would be much more likely to give up after five seconds and ask for help. Does this say something about our culture? I believe it does.
We also discussed mindfulness, and the affect on small children. I have some experiences with mindfulness, and have found that it increases concentration and memory and attention span. For little kids, we don’t know much about that. We also talked about the Psychology of writing - that is, she informed me of its existence and told me to look it up. I will, gladly.
After this, I spoke briefly to Dr. Namy. We discussed how infants learn language. Let’s say there was a strange new thing on the table. If I pointed to it and said “Miskit” repeatedly, you’d get the idea that the strange new thing was a Miskit. But, kids don’t learn language solely from having their parents point at everything and saying what it is. That would take years and years. Instead, there are a few theories: Nature/Nurture. Nature says that kids are practically born with the ability to learn a language, while Nurture says the kids pick it up from everything around them. I did a very difficult test where four made up objects flashed on screen. Four made up words in random order were said as I stared in confusion at the strange pictures. Many sets were repeated, sometimes with new sets of objects and sometimes with a few similar ones. I found myself getting lost as the gibberish meshed in my brain. I could hardly differentiate the words, let alone pair them to strange objects I forgot promptly as new ones were flashed on screen. There were a few words I paired with objects (correctly or not I still do not know). For example, something that sounded like “rachet” I paired with a funny looking gear thing, just because I associate ratchets with gears.
If this is how little kids learn language, it truly is a miracle.
We also spoke of Rosetta Stone and its claim to teach language to adults similarly to how babies learn it. Their claims, Dr. Namy assured me, were lies. Maybe not completely. Certainly, associating pictures and objects with words is how babies do it, in part. But we had an interesting discussion on why it doesn’t work. When you’re sitting at your computer, trying to remember how to order french fries at the restaurant, if you mess up you can always restart and try again. In a restaurant, if you screw up, you can’t do much about it except for trying to redeem yourself by getting it right the second time.
All in all?
Today was very informative.
I wouldn’t mind working there as a grad student :)
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