Updates from ManyBabies: Collaborative efforts to promote best practices and improve robustness in developmental science

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

ManyBabies is a large-scale, collaborative network of researchers that assesses the robustness of key findings in developmental research (Frank et al., 2017). In the current symposium, we provide a report on four new and ongoing collaborative projects that aim to further our understanding of developmental theories and improve research practice, through multi-site high-powered studies.
The first talk will build on the findings of ManyBabies1 (ManyBabies Consortium, 2020) by examining the relationship between infants’ preference for infant-directed speech (IDS) and their later vocabulary size (“ManyBabies1-CDI”). The second talk will report an ongoing effort to develop research ties with developmental scientists and clinicians in Africa, through discussion, capacity-building, and an extension of ManyBabies1 to understudied populations (“ManyBabies1 Africa”). The third talk will report on a new project that investigates Hunter and Ames (1988) model of infant attention, a key theoretical framework for understanding infants’ preferences for familiar and novel stimuli (“ManyBabies5”). Finally, the fourth talk will report an in-progress methodological project that is developing a widely usable online testing framework for infancy research to increase sample diversity. This study is of particular importance in view of various challenges of testing children in laboratory settings, particularly during the current Covid-19 pandemic (“ManyBabies-AtHome”).
Together, these talks will provide important insights into how large-scale collaborative projects can provide more reliable findings in infancy research (i.e., assessing the robustness of the research findings), testing key theoretical frameworks, improving developmental science by increasing sample diversity, promoting new methodology, and developing new ideas.

Sub Unit

• Language, Communication

Chair

• Sin Mei Angeline Tsui, Stanford University

Individual Presentations

• Testing the relationship between IDS preference and vocabulary development: An MB1 Follow-up study - Presenting Author: Melanie Soderstrom, University of Manitoba; Non-Presenting Author: Arthur Capelier-Mourguy, Lancaster University; Non-Presenting Author: Sin Mei Angeline Tsui, Stanford University

• Investigating the robustness of infants’ preference for infant-directed speech: A large-scale, multi-site collaboration in Africa - Presenting Author: Sin Mei Angeline Tsui, Stanford University

• ManyBabies5: A large-scale, collaborative investigation of the the Hunter & Ames Model of infant looking preference - Presenting Author: Jessica Elizabeth Kosie, Princeton University; Non-Presenting Author: Martin Zettersten, Princeton University; Non-Presenting Author: Christina Bergmann, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics; Non-Presenting Author: Dima Amso, Columbia University; Non-Presenting Author: Casey Lew-Williams, Princeton University

• Toward a large-scale collaboration for infant online testing: Introducing ManyBabies-AtHome - Presenting Author: Sho Tsuji, The University of Tokyo; Non-Presenting Author: Christina Bergmann, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics; Non-Presenting Author: Helen Buckler, University of Nottingham; Non-Presenting Author: Rhodri Cusack, Trinity College, Dublin; Non-Presenting Author: Lorijn Zaadnoordijk, Trinity College, Dublin