Problem:
A group of researchers wanted to know whether babies are sensitive to the facial movements of speech. In a habituation experiment, they presented babies with silent video recordings of the face of a person speaking. (For the purposes of this exercise, assume that the experiment measured high-amplitude sucking.) In the habituation phase, babies watched a silent video of a person speaking French until they habituated. In the test phase, half the babies (call them the Test Babies) then saw a new silent video of the same person speaking English. The other half of the babies (Control Group) saw a new silent video of that same person speaking French.
Your job is to predict what results the researchers would observe:
a. If babies can discriminate between the facial movements of French and the facial movements of English, what difference will the researchers observe between the Test and the Control Groups?
b. If babies cannot discriminate between the facial movements of French and English, what pattern of results will the researchers observe?
c. Make a guess: Do you think that the results will differ for bilingual French- English babies vs. monolingual French or monolingual English babies? Why do you think that?