Research Studies

Ohio Texas Transactional Emotion Research Study (OTTERS) is currently seeking participants in a longitudinal research study investigating emotions, temperament, and child development. This study is open to infants between the ages of 11-27 months and their mothers. As a participant you will be asked to come in person to the BEAR lab on Miami University's campus and engage in exciting tasks such as meeting new people, interactive computer games, and playing with new toys!

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Participation includes a short battery of questionnaires completed online or in person and spending approximately 2-4 hours in the lab. During your time in our lab we will record you and your infants neural and behavioral responses during computer tasks and interactive games. We will also monitor your infant’s physiological activity through noninvasive techniques such as collecting saliva samples and observing your child’s brain patterns through EEG.

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Families can be compensated up to $225 for participation across 3 annual visits (visit 1- $50; visit 2- $75; visit 3- $100 )! If you have any questions or want to find out more about the study you can contact us at BEARLab@miamioh.edu. You can also fill out a short survey on our contact page to see if you qualify.

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Transactional Emotional Development in Dyadic Interactions (TEDDI) investigates how children and their parents influence each other’s emotions and other outcomes from infancy to later childhood. We are interested in learning about processes that occur for most families as well as processes that occur when either children or parents experience greater-than-average levels of anxiety. We study this through behavioral interactions with new and sometimes uncertain situations, as well as biological indicators of emotion and anxiety measured in saliva, heart rate, and brain patterns.

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We began the study with a cohort of 1-year-old children and their families, inviting them to participate roughly every year through middle childhood. We are excited that other families joined along the way, resulting in over 200 families in our TEDDI community. We are currently doing laboratory visits for children’s kindergarten year and when children are roughly 8-13 years of age. Families in this study have contributed to our knowledge about how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected children and parents, and we may do additional survey follow-ups for other specific topics.