Playing with bugs

A couple of years ago, Brantley participated in a study at the Peabody College Dept. of Psychology and Human Development. The study was to see if a 2 year old understood that what he saw on a TV was real. So, they showed him a room that was set up like a living room. A camera was set up in that room. In another room was a TV. He watched the TV and the girl hid a stuffed animal in the room. The test was to see if he understood what he was watching on TV was actually what was happening in the next room. If I remember correctly, he totally didn't understand. Interesting experiment. So, when they called me a couple weeks ago about another study, I said Brantley could participate. This study was about different ways of teaching patterns. They used different colors of different bugs to make patterns. Then, Brantley was supposed to tell them what came next. First she asked him to count the different bugs and then to tell her the colors. Then she asked him what each bug was. A couple he didn't know. Then she would put down some bugs in a pattern - yellow dragonfly, yellow dragonfly, red beetle, yellow dragonfly, yellow dragonfly. Then Brantley was supposed to tell her what came next. The practice one he got right so I'm thinking this will be easy. Then, he started missing them. The problem was that he didn't understand what she wanted. She would put them down and ask which one came next, but he would just pick whichever one he wanted to come next. There were 3 ways they were conducting the test. Brantley was supposed to explain to himself how to tell which bug came next and they would tape record what he said. He wasn't about to do that. I think one of the other 2 ways they are testing was that the subject was to explain to the tester how to tell what came next. I'm not sure what the 3rd way was. I don't think he understood that she wanted him to follow the pattern to tell her which one came next. Curiosity got the better of me and while we waited for American Idol to come on I decided to do my own test. I took the cars that Brantley was playing with and put them in a pattern and I would ask Brantley what came next. So, it would be fire truck, fire truck, car, fire truck or red car red car green car red car and so on. Interestingly enough, he got them all. So, my question is this - did he not understand what she was asking him to do or was he just toying with her? Hmmmm....