Welcome to the Child Emotion Research Lab!

Parent Information

How to participate:

If you have looked through our website or have heard about our research and would like to have your child participate in our research, please fill out our registration form to indicate your interest. By filling out the registration form, you have expressed your interest but have not made any commitment to participation. As your child approaches the right age for one of our studies, we will call you and give you more information about that study. At that time, you may decide whether or not you'd like to participate in that particular study. Please feel free to contact us via e-mail at Childemotion@waisman.wisc.edu for any questions about our program.

Other ways to register for participation:

You can also register by calling us at (608) 262-6647 (or 608-265-5148 for the WI International Adoption Study). We will give you more information about our research and answer questions you may have. If you decide to participate, we will get in touch with you when your child approaches the right age for one of our studies.

If you have received a letter or brochure from us with a reply postcard, you can also just return the postcard. We will call you to give you more information when new studies are beginning and can sign you up if you are interested in participating.

Confidentiality:

If you received our introductory letter, we do not keep names or addresses on file. We only keep on file the names of families who have taken the initiative to contact us, and have also indicated further interest in participating in our research. All information about families who have chosen to participate is kept secure and not shared with anyone else. All participants in our studies are identified by number rather than by name in all research records, and all records and data are treated as confidential.

What happens during a visit?

Our lab is located in two different buildings on the University of Wisconsin campus. One part of the lab is located on the ground floor of the W.J. Brogden Psychology Building (corner of Charter Street and University Avenue). The other part of the lab is located on the 5 th floor of the Waisman Center (behind the University Medical Center). When we schedule your visit, we will tell you where the study your child is participating in is located. We provide you with parking permits for either location or provide cab fare for you.

Waisman Center 1500 Highland Avenue	W. J. Brogden Psychology Building 1202 West Johnson Street

Giving your “informed consent.” As you and your child explore the lab rooms, we will tell you about the study and answer any questions. You will then be asked to read and sign the consent form, indicating that you have been informed about the procedures involved and are giving permission for your child's participation. If you child is older than age 11, we will give your child their own form to sign. Regardless of your child's age, we will ensure that children understand the studies and procedures used.

Experimental sessions. We use many different kinds of approaches to study who children learn to understand emotions.

As a token of our gratitude for your contribution to research on children's emotional development, we will pay you for your time. Your child will also receive a special gift to take home. We typically have an assortment of toys and games for younger children, Wisconsin t-shirts and baseball caps, books, and CDs for older children, and gift certificates or cash for our oldest child participants. When we describe different studies to you, we will also tell you what you and your child will receive for your participation.

What happens to the data? For many of our studies, we code children's computer responses, eye movements, brain electrical activity and save this information in electronic form. In some studies samples of children's saliva, urine, or pictures of their brains are also stored. All information is coded by number, not name. And the information we collect is only used for the purposes wedescribe to you on the consent form, not for any other purpose. The results from our studies are typically first presented at a professional scientific conferences (with no information identifying individual participants) and then reported in a scientific journal. A summary of the results for parents will also be made available to participating families.

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