Magdalena the guinea pig

Since I'm a linguist, it was pretty much a dream come true when a woman approached me at the farmer's market and asked if I would volunteer my kids to be subjects in Cornell's Baby Lab research. During my time in the BYU linguistics department, I was brought up on stories of famous studies like the Wug Test.

The research they had Magdalena participate in a few days ago was similar. I took her into a room and put on some huge headphones that blocked out the researcher's voice so I couldn't hear her and pass on unintentional cues to Magdalena. At the time, all I could see was that they were presenting her with a variety of objects and asking her to put certain ones in the basket.

At one point, they brought out a few oddly shaped stuffed toys, in felt and silky materials and in different colors. After the research was over, they told me that they taught her about one of the toys, and called it a Mody. The rest of the research experiment consisted of them asking her to put the Mody in the basket.

We actually made two trips to the Baby Lab, so they could test her recall on the second day. It was so much (nerdy) fun. Looking back, I'm not sure Magdalena performed too well, but I think it was partly because she was unwilling to give up such interesting toys to put them in the basket. One of the researchers told me that at one point, she asked Magdalena to put the ball in the basket and Magdalena shook her head and said, "No."

So if you see any ground-breaking linguistic research out there about a silly shape called a Mody, just know that Magdalena was instrumental in bringing it to pass.

(And if any of you in the Ithaca area want your kids to be linguistic research guinea pigs and also get a small pink stuffed monkey as a prize, go to the Baby Lab website to sign up.)