Parents and researchers in the Baby Lab with baby "scientists" for the day, Willow (left) and Rémy
A research group at the University of Sussex is looking to enlist baby scientists to help with an exciting new project. The call-out for babies comes from the Sussex Baby Lab ,1 where researchers study tiny tots at play to find out what babies can understand, how they experience the world around them and how they develop and learn. Participating babies and their parents will be asked to attend the new lab, decked out in baby-friendly colours and furnishings, to play specially designed games and take part in fun activities while researchers observe how the babies act and behave, or record what the babies look at. Psychologist Anna Franklin , who heads the Sussex Baby Lab, says: "It may look like it's just a lot of fun, but the babies are actually helping researchers answer a range of important questions such as: 'how long can babies remember something for?' 'Can babies recognise their mother's face?' Or even 'can babies count?'" The Baby Lab's current project, the 'Rainbow Project' ,2 aims to discover how babies see colour. To find out, researchers will need to study around 400 babies over a two-year period, so they are looking for babies in the Sussex area to take part. During a 30-minute visit babies will be shown a series of colours while the researchers record what they look at to find out whether they recognise changes in colour. Franklin says: "We know from previous research that contrary to popular belief, babies do see colour, even when they are newborns.
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