Let's Experiment On My 3 Year-Old

Loss Leader

I would save the receptionist., Moderator
Loss Leader
Joined
Jul 10, 2006
Messages
28,550
Location
Florida
After watching a TV show about primates, I tried the following experiment on my 3 year-old:

Two large cups, a small train, and an Elmo doll. I put the train in one cup and told my son, "We're putting the train in this cup. Elmo is watching and he sees that it's in this cup." Then I put Elmo in the other room. I came back and said, "Now, while Elmo is gone, we're going to play a trick on him. We're going to take the train out of this cup and put it in the other cup." I moved the train and then brought Elmo back. I asked my boy, "Which cup is Elmo going to look in first to find the train?"

After a moment of thought, my son indicated the second cup which actually contained the train.

I repeated the experiment on my 6 year-old (who had been downstairs and had not seen the test). He instantly indicated the first cup, where the train had originally been.

So, now it has become a thing. Please suggest further psychological experiments I can do on my boys regarding cognition, perspective, or whatever. The experiments have to be doable with items found in the home, of short duration, and most importantly, they MUST NOT anger my wife.

I'll run the ones I can and report the results.
 
Have a piece of cardboard with a picture of one thing on one side and a very different thing on the other side. When I have done this before, I have used a children's book for convenience. Show him one side, and ask him to name what is on it. Then turn it around to show him the other side, and ask him to name what picture is now facing him.

Then ask him to name the picture that is facing you ("Which picture am I looking at").

He should say what is facing him, no matter how much you clarify, at that age. This is called egocentrism!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egocentrism

EDIT: According to a guy named Jean Piaget who did research on this topic, it should still be the case for six year olds, but that doesn't seem to fit. You can solve this mystery once and for all! :)
 
Last edited:
You can find lots of these types of things on YouTube, in suggested videos.


Suggested search terms are "piaget" and "preoperational".
 
The following will work on him until he is about 9.

Fill a measuring cup with a predetermined volume of juice, it can be any volume, you'll just need to be consistent throughout the experiment.

Find two glasses with roughly similar volume, but different shapes. A tall glass and a rocks glass are a good example, because one is narrow and the other is wide.

Pour the same volume of liquid into both glasses.

Ask your kids which has more juice. Let him watch the entire operation of you measuring equal volumes and pouring them into glasses if you wish.

You child will insist that the narrower glass contains more liquid. Volume is too complex a concept for young children. "Taller" = "more."
 
A more impressive variant of the one suggested by ImaginalDisc above is to have two rows of five coins, evenly spaced, and ask if the rows contain the same amount of coins or not.

Then just move the coins in one row to be a little more spread out and ask if they contain the same number of coins or not.

Maybe all you would need to do is move just one coin across a bit for it to work. And you do it openly, showing you are not adding any or taking any away.

I find it more impressive because they would be able to just count that they contain the same number of coins, which isn't really the case with the liquid.
 
These are great ideas. I almost feel like waking them up and starting now.

I'm excited to try the penny experiment because the 3 year old has very good pre-math skills. He can count objects up to 20.

And believe me, there are times when I think very, very hard about trying "will it blend".
 
Loss Leader said:
These are great ideas. I almost feel like waking them up and starting now.

I'm excited to try the penny experiment because the 3 year old has very good pre-math skills. He can count objects up to 20.

And believe me, there are times when I think very, very hard about trying "will it blend".
Click to expand...

Counting is a kind of skill that small children can fake without understanding.

In the same way that they can learn lyrics to songs without knowing what they mean, kids can "sound off" numbers without actively counting. By 3 he should be pretty good, but try mixing up quantities, taking and adding things to groups, and make sure he's getting it.
 
Strength of Experiment??

Loss Leader said:
After watching a TV show about primates, I tried the following experiment on my 3 year-old:

Two large cups, a small train, and an Elmo doll. I put the train in one cup and told my son, "We're putting the train in this cup. Elmo is watching and he sees that it's in this cup." Then I put Elmo in the other room. I came back and said, "Now, while Elmo is gone, we're going to play a trick on him. We're going to take the train out of this cup and put it in the other cup." I moved the train and then brought Elmo back. I asked my boy, "Which cup is Elmo going to look in first to find the train?"

After a moment of thought, my son indicated the second cup which actually contained the train.

I repeated the experiment on my 6 year-old (who had been downstairs and had not seen the test). He instantly indicated the first cup, where the train had originally been.

So, now it has become a thing. Please suggest further psychological experiments I can do on my boys regarding cognition, perspective, or whatever. The experiments have to be doable with items found in the home, of short duration, and most importantly, they MUST NOT anger my wife.

I'll run the ones I can and report the results.
Click to expand...

I am going to suggest that, A) the strength of the experiment was pretty low (one test subject), and B) that the test was not double-blinded.

Unless your child is a genius, which I don't dispute, modeling the mental states of others should occur only much later in development. A three-year-old, as I'm sure you know, should answer based on what they know, not what a third party should know. Maybe this one test was a fluke? Maybe he/she clued in on your cues (like "Clever Hans", sorry). What is your claim here? The typical outcomes are well-studied.
 
Finn McR said:
I am going to suggest that, A) the strength of the experiment was pretty low (one test subject), and B) that the test was not double-blinded.

Unless your child is a genius, which I don't dispute, modeling the mental states of others should occur only much later in development. A three-year-old, as I'm sure you know, should answer based on what they know, not what a third party should know. Maybe this one test was a fluke? Maybe he/she clued in on your cues (like "Clever Hans", sorry). What is your claim here? The typical outcomes are well-studied.
Click to expand...


Don't understand your complaint, really. My 3 year old performed as I was told to expect - he could not determine a difference between what he knew and what Elmo knew. My 6 year-old could.

Of course my test lacks any scientific merit in whole. All it does is indicate that both my children performed the way the majority of children do.

I'm not trying to write a paper, just see if general psychological and developmental research is confirmed in this instance.

If you would like, though, I will begin tomorrow by blinding myself and my sons. I'll have to do them first, for efficiency's sake.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
The following will work on him until he is about 9.

Fill a measuring cup with a predetermined volume of juice, it can be any volume, you'll just need to be consistent throughout the experiment.

Find two glasses with roughly similar volume, but different shapes. A tall glass and a rocks glass are a good example, because one is narrow and the other is wide.

Pour the same volume of liquid into both glasses.

Ask your kids which has more juice. Let him watch the entire operation of you measuring equal volumes and pouring them into glasses if you wish.

You child will insist that the narrower glass contains more liquid. Volume is too complex a concept for young children. "Taller" = "more."
Click to expand...

Once you have done this and verified that "Taller" = "more" here is a variation that I just thought of.

Take two identical drinking containers, fill both with water. Put them both on the table, one of them upright (the tall glass) and the other flat. Ask which contains more water? The answer had better not be "The tall one because the other one is spilling its contents."
 
Loss Leader said:
If you would like, though, I will begin tomorrow by blinding myself and my sons. I'll have to do them first, for efficiency's sake.
Click to expand...

I'd do the six-year old first, as if you do the three-year old first he's likely to hear the screams and run. Three year olds can't run that fast.
 
I tried a book with different animals on front and back. Unfortunately, we had some interruptions, so I'm not sure things went straight, but 3-year-old #1 answered the animal I was looking at correctly (and emphatically!)

With a set of 5 coins with different spacing, both 3-year-olds immediately said there were more in the longer set (and proceeded to count them incorrectly to "show" there were more there).
 
rjh01 said:
Take two identical drinking containers, fill both with water. Put them both on the table, one of them upright (the tall glass) and the other flat. Ask which contains more water? The answer had better not be "The tall one because the other one is spilling its contents."
Click to expand...

Maybe I'm confused, but I don't understand. If they are identical, how is one taller than the other?
 
ImaginalDisc said:
Counting is a kind of skill that small children can fake without understanding.

In the same way that they can learn lyrics to songs without knowing what they mean, kids can "sound off" numbers without actively counting. By 3 he should be pretty good, but try mixing up quantities, taking and adding things to groups, and make sure he's getting it.
Click to expand...
I doubt they are faking, they are parroting (and being rewarded for it!!) but they are unlikely to be trying to fool you over how much/well they understand the concept - mostly because they have no concept of concept nor a reason to truly count as distinguished from saying/writing the numbers in correct order.
 
Alan said:
Have a piece of cardboard with a picture of one thing on one side and a very different thing on the other side. When I have done this before, I have used a children's book for convenience. Show him one side, and ask him to name what is on it. Then turn it around to show him the other side, and ask him to name what picture is now facing him.

Then ask him to name the picture that is facing you ("Which picture am I looking at").
Click to expand...


I drew a heart on one side of a piece of paper and a crude house on the other side. I showed the 3 year-old both sides. I asked him to name the objects, which he did easily. I then held up the paper between us, so that it blocked his view of my face. I asked him which picture I was looking at.

In several trials, he always correctly stated the picture I was looking at. After the first two trials, I asked him what I was looking at and then asked him what he was looking at. He correctly stated which picture I was looking at, and correctly told me the other picture that he was looking at.

He is 3 years 9 mos.

I didn't try this on the 6 year-old as he was not home.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
The following will work on him until he is about 9.

Fill a measuring cup with a predetermined volume of juice, it can be any volume, you'll just need to be consistent throughout the experiment.

Find two glasses with roughly similar volume, but different shapes. A tall glass and a rocks glass are a good example, because one is narrow and the other is wide.

Pour the same volume of liquid into both glasses.

Ask your kids which has more juice. Let him watch the entire operation of you measuring equal volumes and pouring them into glasses if you wish.

You child will insist that the narrower glass contains more liquid. Volume is too complex a concept for young children. "Taller" = "more."
Click to expand...


With my son watching, I took a pitcher of water, a 1 Cup measuring cup, a short, fat glass and a tall glass. I filled the measuring cup and then explained to him that I was putting one cup of water in the short glass. I repeated this for the tall glass. I asked him which had more.

He could not make up his mind between the tall glass and the short. The short was filled almost to the top and the tall about two thirds of the way. There wasn't much different in the heights of the water. He settled on the tall glass.

I found an old, narrower tall drinking glass from another set. I repeated the experiment, again pouring water into a 1 cup measuring cup before putting it into the glasses. The narrower glass showed the water at a dramatically different height. In this case, the 3 year-old immediately stated that the tall glass had more water.

I will try this on the 6 year-old when he comes back from karate.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

ISF - Join now!

Every member here is approved by hand. No bots, no spam, just people who care about evidence and honest debate.

Membership is free!

Create your free account

Back
Top Bottom