Yale Developmental Labs

Our labs run a variety of developmental psychology studies in person and online. Our studies usually take around 10 minutes and are designed to be fun and kid-friendly, usually seeming like games for the children and often involving toys and engaging stories.

We run our in-person studies in our lab space at 100 College St. in downtown New Haven, as well as at local schools and museums with whom we have partnerships. We also conduct our studies online.

We run studies throughout the year, though we may not always have studies available for children in your age range. If you sign up for our database, we will notify you whenever we have new studies for which your child is eligible.

If your child is not in the age range for our current studies, you can still sign up for our database here so we can contact you when we release new studies/your child becomes eligible.

While your child is participating in the studies, your other children are welcome to remain in the room with you and do other activities we have available (building blocks, coloring). We also have members of our research team who can interact with your other children during your visit.

If you have more than one child in the age range, you are very welcome to sign them up to participate as well. This ideally would be done before you come in for the study, but can usually also be done on the spot.

Your child's experience is our top priority: we want them to enjoy participating in our research and have a good time! Before all studies, we always spend some time building rapport with your child and allowing them to acclimate to the testing space to ensure they're feeling happy and comfortable. Every study always starts with getting verbal assent from your child.

If your child decides they do not want to participate, or they change their mind in the middle of the study, that's okay! We will stop the study and thank your child for trying it out. You and your child will still receive all the same benefits described above.

You will receive text reminders via Calendly 3 days before, 24 hours before, and 1 hour before your appointment. You can reply to those texts if you need to cancel or reschedule for another date; if you require extra assistance, please call or email the lab member with whom you have been in contact.

The Yale Developmental Labs are located on the 12th floor of 100 College Street in Downtown New Haven (the Alexion Building). We are a short 10-15-minute walk from both Union and State Street Stations, as well as easily accessible from 1-95, I-91, and local roads. Please take caution when walking.

Map & Directions

Parking Directions:
We offer FREE parking at the 100 College Street Garage (on Sundays the meters are also free on the street). If using a GPS, type in "100 College St Garage."" You can enter on N Frontage Rd/MLK Jr Blvd or on S Frontage Rd. Take a parking ticket, and then park on Level 2 in the designated Yale Psychology Department parking spots.

If those spots are full, park on Floors 1-3. After your session, insert your ticket and then scan the validated ticket (which we will provide) on the lower section of the machine. Please do not park in the ProPark or Air Rights Garage. Please be sure to look for the "100 College Street Garage."

A lab member will meet you in the garage or the lobby!

Each child can participate in as many studies as they are eligible for, but they can only participate in each individual study once. We will reach out to you in the future as new studies become available for your child!

We establish Living Lab partnerships with local museums, which allows us to not only conduct our studies in the museum space with visitors but also do science outreach - we love talking with adults and children alike about psychology!

Please reach out to our Recruitment Coordinator, Katya Mehta, at katya.mehta@yale.edu.

All we ask is that the museum provide a quiet space for us to run studies - for example, a classroom or small room adjacent to museum exhibits.

This depends on the museum's preferences and our availability - we visit some of our partners as frequently as every week, and other partners we visit twice a year.

Partnering with local schools not only offers us a way to run our studies with the many children who attend those schools, but it helps us to get to know, and give back to, the local educators and communities. We hope our research will help create better educational experiences for all children and to really contribute to that goal, we must get to know what the experience is for students and teachers now.

Please reach out to our Recruitment Coordinator, Katya Mehta, at katya.mehta@yale.edu.

We ask that school administration help us with two things. First, we ask for help distributing consent forms and parent letters and returning them to us. Second, we ask for a quiet space to conduct our studies during our visit - it could be a small classroom, empty hallway, library, etc.

Our researchers typically visit the school one to two times per study. This will depend on the number of children who sign up, and we will schedule our visits at a time that works for your school and classroom.

Please check out each faculty member's lab website for opportunities to join as a research assistant, intern, graduate student, and more!