dr. melanie killen to scientifically measure children's attitudes on race. take a look at this. dr. killen and her team showed kids this picture and asked them the picture is designed to be ambiguous. what's happening is in the eye of the beholder. then they show them this picture and ask the same question. now, the only difference in the pictures, the race of the children was flipped. both white and african-american children were tested, and in addition to the 6-year-olds, the psychologist showed a similar set of pictures to 13-year-olds. at our request, they also asked kids open-ended questions about race to try to understand how it plays into their own lives. the responses were raw. some of the experiences they described were frankly shocking. this is the reality of what kids see, hear and think about race. listen. >> if you have the same skin, you can play together. but if you don't have the same skin, you can't play together. >> so why can't you play together if you have different color skin? >> because your mom might not want you to play with that friend. >> it's okay to tell

dr. melanie killen to scientifically measure children's attitudes on race. take a look at this. dr. killen and her team showed 6-year-old kids this picture and asked them questions like what's happening here? are these children friends? and would their parents want them to be friends? the picture is designed to be ambiguous. what's happening is in the eye of the beholder. then they show them this picture and ask the same question. now, the only difference in the pictures, the race of the children was flipped. both white and african-american children were tested, and in addition to the 6-year-olds, the psychologist showed a similar set of pictures to 13-year-olds. at our request, they also asked kids open-ended questions about race to try to understand how it plays into their own lives. the responses were raw. some of the experiences they described were frankly shocking. this is the reality of what kids see, hear and think about race. listen. >> if you have the same skin, you can play together. but if you don't have the same skin, you can't play together. >> so why can't you play tog

dr. melanie killen to design this study. take a look at this. dr.r team showed 13-year-old children this picture and asked them questions like what's happening here? are these children friends, would their parents want them to be friends? the picture is designed to be ambiguous. what's happening is in the eye of the beholder. then they showed them this picture and asked them what happened. with the races flipped. both white and african-american kids were tested. and the psychologist showed a similar set of pictures to 6-year-olds. at our request, they were asked open-ended questions about race to understand how it plays into their own lives. the experiences were raw and it some of the experiences they describe were shocking. this is the reality of what kids see, hear, and think about race. listen. >> if you have the same skin, you can play together. but if you don't have the same skin, you can't play together. >> so why can't you play together if you have different color skin? >> because your mom might not want you to play with that friend. >> do yo

dr. melanie killen and cnn's soledad o'brien.e racial makeup of a school can have a profound effect. how so? >> it can. it gives children the opportunities for having contact with other kids and potentially making friends. we find that it really makes a difference for kids in thinking about who they're going to play with and who they're going to be friends with. >> so if you're a white parent whose child goes to a majority white school, this study gives you a lot to worry about. what do you say to a parent who's concerned? >> well, we hope it gives them a lot to think about in thinking about their -- how they're exposing their children to people of different races and ethnicities and you can think about the level of community. so maybe your school isn't diverse but the larger district you live in is more diverse. maybe there's an opportunity to have your children encounter other kids or if not that, then to use other kinds of media, whether it's books or television, but to think about the whole issue of exposing your children --