The brightly painted fish and dolphins on the walls, and the toys littering the corners suggest this office is a place for kids, even though it's located in the basement of the Muenzinger Psychology building on campus at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
In fact, the room is decorated with kids in mind, according to CU-Boulder Associate Professor Yuko Munakata of the psychology department. But it's not a faculty day care center or a playroom, it's Munakata's cognitive research center.
In the lab, Munakata and her research associates are working with infants as young as 6 months and children up to 6 years old to learn more about human knowledge and how it changes as children develop.
"We're trying to understand how humans develop cognitive abilities like remembering where we left our keys or how we figure out where we are when we explore a new city for the first time," explained Munakata. "Studying how these abilities develop should help us understand not only how infants and children think, but also how we come to think as adults."
With this goal in mind, Munakata and her research team, which includes 12 CU-Boulder undergraduate students, are working on a variety of projects exploring cognitive development from infancy through childhood. These projects involve bringing children to her lab to "play" various games with the goal of figuring out when different cognitive abilities are gained, according to Munakata.
"When we give directions to parents who are bringing their children to the lab, we tell them to follow the fish," Munakata said. And sure enough, along the hallway leading to Munakata's lab are dozens of fish and other ocean-dwelling creatures painted on the wall.
It hasn't always been like this. Last summer when Munakata moved her lab from the University of Denver to CU-Boulder, the basement hallway and the lab itself were as dark as a dungeon, not to mention a little creepy, she said.
"We really wanted to brighten it up and make the space as comfortable as possible for the kids who visit," she said. So one of her undergraduate students, who also works in the lab, volunteered to use her talent as an artist to paint the colorful scenes. Keeping the kids content is vital to Munakata's ability to do her research.
"My overall goal is to understand what knowledge we are born with and how we go from there to the incredibly rich cognitive ability we have as adults," she said.
One of her ongoing projects involves working with 3-year-olds using differing sets of cards to try to learn more about cognitive flexibility, or the ability to consciously break a habit to adopt a new behavior.
In the "card-sorting game," children are given two sets of cards to sort into piles either by shape or color. After completing the task, they are then asked to sort the cards in the opposite fashion. Typically, they sort the cards correctly the first time, but continue to sort the cards the same way the second time, Munakata said.
Through a number of different sorting games and exercises, Munakata has learned that giving children feedback when they are trying a new behavior helps them learn to switch to that new behavior. She hopes some of her findings can be put to use in classrooms or by parents.
She also is studying how babies learning to walk figure out where they are and where they want to go, and through a hide-and-seek game she is learning more about how babies' memories develop.
Munakata currently is seeking parents interested in having their children participate in studies at the Cognitive Development Center. The sessions generally take 30 minutes to an hour, and if the parents want to participate again, they are invited back when their child is in the age range for another project.
For more information about the Cognitive Development Center call (303) 492-6389 or e-mail the center at cogdevctr@grey.colorado.edu, or visit the Web site at .