Call for Participants – Exciting Psychology Research Projects for Children
The Person Perception lab group in the School of Psychology are looking for participants for a series of research projects involving children aged 2-11.
The three projects, which will take place from from the 20th – 24th August will involve a range of fun tasks focusing on how children see themselves, how they perceive aspects such as body size and weight and how this is influenced by the media.
Project 1 – ‘Meet your own mini-me!’
The group are collecting 3D photographs of children ages 2-10 to create a realistic set of pictures to represent what children in the U.K look like. All of the anonymized body size and shape information from the 3D photographs will be put together to create a tool that will help parents and health professionals correctly assess children’s health and weight
Taking place in a purpose built private lab, a special 3D scanner will take your child’s 3D photo while dressed in their own underwear. You can then see the 3D image on a computer screen – just like a real life videogame character! You can take a photo of your child’s ‘mini-me’ using your smart phone or camera.
Project 2 – ‘Our bodies come in all shapes and sizes – can you see?’
The purpose of this research is to learn if children aged 7-11 are can estimate their body size and what they want to look like as children, and when they grow up. Researchers are also investigating the influence of the media (watching television for example) on children’s body size perceptions. Children are shown a set of 10 computer-generated pictures of children their own age and gender and asked their opinions about them. For example, ‘which child has the body most like yours?’ Children will also be asked how much TV they watch and how much time they spend online as well as measuring height and weight to calculate how accurate children are at judging their own body size.
Project 3 – ‘Guess who looks like me?’
This research aims to find out how accurate children ages 4-6 can judge body size and where on the body they are looking to make those judgements. On a computer screen with a special invisible eye tracking camera, children are shown 4 simple images of children the same age and gender, and asked some questions like ‘which child looks most like you?’ Measurements of height, weight and waist will also be taken to calculate children’s accuracy in the task. Parents are also asked to respond to a short questionnaire.
To find out more about the projects or to arrange a date and time for your child to take part, please contact Tracey Thornborrow on TThornborrow@lincoln.ac.uk or Tel: 07590609570.