Current Studies

Detecting emotion changes while interacting with a digital child - ELLA

Soul Machines has developed a lifelike interactive model of a human infant. The Early Learning Lab uses this digital child to explore how fast and accurate caregivers respond to emotion changes, with the goal of improving caregiver responsiveness through targeted interventions.

We are seeking parents of children aged 3 to 5 years to participate in this exciting research. Sign up now to be a part of this exciting study, funded by the Royal Society of New Zealand’s Marsden Fund.

Key Contact: Florian

Babies and Auditory Discrimination - Music Lab

This study seeks to understand what sounds babies can distinguish between. We know how quickly infants acquire language, but what is it that they are hearing and paying attention to in their auditory environment that facilitates this?

We have designed a listening study where babies will watch and react to cartoon characters making sounds to gain a better understanding of their fine grained auditory abilities.

We are looking for families with infants between 3 and 7 months of age. Please sign up today or spread the word to families you know who may be interested in helping us with this research!

Key Contact: Juliet

Does sleep play a role in toddlers’ social behaviour - ELLA

This new study explores the potentially important link between sleep and social interactions in older infants. This study involves two visits to our child-friendly research space. Children will participate in games with both yourself and an experimenter to help understand sleep and social interactions.

We are looking for families with children between 24 and 30 months of age to participate in this fun new study. Please sign up today or spread the word to families you know who may be interested in helping us with this research!

Key Contact: Immy

Over Selectivity - AUT and ELLA

Our study investigates decision making in children, focusing on how they use feedback to learn what to pay attention to. In this study, children will play some interactive games with the researcher, such as a choice game and some card-sorting games.

We are looking for 2 to 4 year old children to participate, who have no known vision or hearing issues. Please sign up today or spread the word to families you know who may be interested in helping us with this research!

Key Contacts: Stef, Ying and Stefanie

School of Psychology
Building 302, 2nd Floor
23 Symonds Street
The University of Auckland
Auckland, 1142
Aotearoa / New Zealand

Phone:
+64 9 9234236
Email:
developmentalscience@auckland.ac.nz