Gye Greene's Thoughts

Gye Greene's Thoughts (w/ apologies to The Smithereens and their similarly-titled album!)

Monday, November 22, 2010

Experiment

In our household, we've tended to color-code things for our (fraternal) twin boys: Eric gets green things (shirts, socks, plates, cups, toy cars...) and Nathan gets blue things.

Because of this, for the last month or two, both E and N will point to things of that color and identify it as "My [name of item]!" or "[Name of other boy]'s [name of item]!" For example, if we're in a parking lot and see a green car, Eric will point to it and declare "My car!"

We've also -- for our own reference as well as theirs -- marked their items with an "E" or an "N". And thus for the last month or two, they've also (correctly!) identified items based on those letters -- to the extent that over the last half-month when they see an "E" or an "N" as part of a store sign (e.g. "SAFEWAY"), they'll point to that letter and declare "Eric!" or "Nathan!"


But -- I was curious as to whether the color, or the letter, had priority: how would they respond when presented them with a letter that was the "opposite" color -- i.e., a blue "E" or a green "N"?


For the first run-through, I presented the blue "E", then the green "N", and followed them up with a blue, then green, capital "Delta" (basically, a hollow triangle). Both both boys prioritized the letter over the color, declaring the blue "E" to be Eric's and the green "N" to be Nathan's. Thus, language appears to trump the color-coding.


For the second run-through (performed on the following day), I wanted to see if being "primed" with the color assigned to a neutral geometric shape (the delta-triangle, again) would increase the importance of the color, rather than the letter. So, this time I showed the blue, then green delta (both boys assigned the color to the correct person), and **then** did the blue "E" and the green "N".

Nathan prioritized the letter over the color -- despite having been first shown the blue triangle. Eric, however, said "Nathan" (rather than "Eric"!) for the blue "E" -- and then said "Nathan" again for the green "N". However, when I then returned to the blue "E", on that second try he said "Eric". This suggests that the meaningfulness of the shape, as opposed to the color, is not quite as firmly embedded in Eric: Nathan's prioritization of the letter over the color persisted despite being "primed" with the color-only stimulus, whereas Eric's prioritization was shifted by it.


I should note that the letters were centered on a folded-over piece of typing paper, and each was about half the width and length of that folded-over paper. Also, the thickness of the letters, and the Delta, was about as wide as my pinky finger (a little under a half inch), so the color was fairly apparent.

Also, each boy was presented with the stimuli in isolation from the other boy.


--GG

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2 Comments:

At January 02, 2011 5:08 PM, Anonymous Giovanna said...

This made me really, really laugh! Doing experiments on your kids! Very funny!

I hope the millesecond mental quandry between the blue/green and E/N doesn't harm them for life.

 
At January 03, 2011 12:34 AM, Blogger Gye Greene said...

Happy to amuse. :)

Doubt it will harm. But, will be interesting to see if their "favorite color" is influenced by the color assignment.


--GG

 

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