Name: Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm (Video) | JoVE Journal
Uploaded: 2019-05-15T15:00:00.000+00:00
Duration: 6 min 7 s
Description: Explore eye tracking and the preferential looking paradigm to study infant visual attention and language learning. This non-invasive method collects gaze data efficiently to understand how babies perceive environmental cues.

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Data collection for the study was conducted in the UCSD Mind, Experience, and Perception Lab (UCSD MEP Lab) at the University of California, San Diego. Funding was provided by NIH R01EY024623 (Bosworth &#38; Dobkins) and NSF SBE-1041725 (Petitto &#38; Allen; subaward to Bosworth). We are grateful to the MEPLab student research team, and to the infants and families in San Diego, California, who participated in this study.

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<li>Petitto, L. A., Berens, M. S., Kovelman, I., Dubins, M. H., Jasinska, K., Shalinsky, M. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=((The+%22perceptual+wedge+hypothesis%22+as+the+basis+for+bilingual+babies%27+phonetic+processing+advantage%3A+New+insights+from+fNIRS+brain+imaging%5BTitle%5D)+AND+%22Brain+and+Language%22%5BJournal%5D)">The "perceptual wedge hypothesis" as the basis for bilingual babies' phonetic processing advantage: New insights from fNIRS brain imaging.</a> Brain and Language. 121 (2), 130-143 (2012).</li>
<li>Colombo, J., Mitchell, D. W. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=((Infant+visual+habituation%5BTitle%5D)+AND+%22Neurobiology+of+Learning+and+Memory%22%5BJournal%5D)">Infant visual habituation.</a> Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. 92 (2), 225-234 (2009).</li>
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<li>Oakes, L. M. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=((Advances+in+eye+tracking+in+infancy+research%5BTitle%5D)+AND+%22Infancy%22%5BJournal%5D)">Advances in eye tracking in infancy research.</a> Infancy. 17 (1), 1-8 (2012).</li>
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<li>Petitto, L. A., Langdon, C., Stone, A., Andriola, D., Kartheiser, G., Cochran, C. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=((Visual+sign+phonology%3A+Insights+into+human+reading+and+language+from+a+natural+soundless+phonology%5BTitle%5D)+AND+%22WIREs+Cognitive+Science%22%5BJournal%5D)">Visual sign phonology: Insights into human reading and language from a natural soundless phonology.</a> WIREs Cognitive Science. 7 (6), 366-381 (2016).</li>
<li>Johnson, M. H., Posner, M. I., Rothbart, M. K. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=((Facilitation+of+saccades+toward+a+covertly+attended+location+in+early+infancy%5BTitle%5D)+AND+%22Psychological+Science%22%5BJournal%5D)">Facilitation of saccades toward a covertly attended location in early infancy.</a> Psychological Science. 5 (2), 90-93 (1994).</li>
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<li>Quinn, P. C., Uttley, L., Lee, K., Gibson, A., Smith, M., Slater, A. M., Pascalis, O. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=((Infant+preference+for+female+faces+occurs+for+same-but+not+other-race+faces%5BTitle%5D)+AND+%22Journal+of+Neuropsychology%22%5BJournal%5D)">Infant preference for female faces occurs for same-but not other-race faces.</a> Journal of Neuropsychology. 2 (1), 15-26 (2008).</li>
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</ol>

The authors have nothing to disclose.

We used the preferential looking paradigm to discover evidence that infants may be sensitive to a particular visual cue in the language signal, despite having no prior experience with signed language. Furthermore, this sensitivity was observed only in younger infants, and not older infants, a manifestation of the classic perceptual narrowing function. Evidence of an age-based preference for well-formed syllables based on sonority restrictions allowed us to further hypothesize that sonority may be an important cue for inf...

The paramount goal of developmental science is to study the emergence of cognitive functions, language, and social cognition in infants and children. Eye movements are modulated by participants&#39;&#160;intentions, comprehension, knowledge, interest, and attention to the external world. Collecting oculomotor responses in infants while they orient to and scan visual static or dynamic images can provide information about infants&#39;&#160;emerging understanding of, and attention to, their external visual worlds and the language input they receive.
While eye tracking technology has been around for more than a hundred years, it has only recently advanced in efficiency and usability, permitting it to be used to study infants. In the last decade, eye tracking has revealed much about the mental world of infants. For example, we now know much about short-term memory, object occlusion, and the anticipation of upcoming events in 6-month-olds from gaze behavior1,2,3. Eye tracking can also be used to study infant language learning4. Generally, infant language learning depends on the ability to discriminate sensory cues present in the environment and to identify the cues that are most salient for language transmission5,6. Developmental scientists seek to better understand what these sensory cues are, why they attract infants&#39;&#160;attention, and how attention to these cues scaffold language learning in infants. The present paper presents an eye tracking protocol and a preferential looking paradigm that can be used together to study infants&#39;&#160;sensitivities to such cues in spoken or signed languages.
In Stone, et al.7, eye tracking was used with a preferential looking paradigm to test whether sign-na&#239;ve infants possessed a sensitivity to a set of phonological contrasts in signed language. These contrasts differed by sonority (i.e., perceptual salience), a structural linguistic property present in both spoken and signed languages7,8,9,10,11,12,13. Sonority is thought to be important for phonological restrictions in syllable formation in spoken and signed languages such that syllables which obey sonority-based restrictions are considered to be more &#34;well-formed.&#34;&#160;Infants, when listening to speech, have been observed to show behavioral preferences for well-formed syllables over ill-formed syllables across multiple languages, and even in languages they had never heard before14,15. We hypothesized that infants would also show similar preferences for well-formed syllables in signed language, even if they had no prior experience with signed language.
We further hypothesized that this preference - or sensitivity - would be subject to perceptual narrowing. This is the language acquisition phenomenon where, as the infant approaches its first birthday, the infant&#8217;s early, universal sensitivity to many language features attenuates down to only the features within the language(s) the infant has been exposed to16,17. We recruited younger (six-month-olds) and older (twelve-month-olds) infants, selecting these ages because they are on opposite ends of the perceptual narrowing function for sensitivity to novel phonetic contrasts17,18,19. We predicted that younger infants would demonstrate a preference for well-formed syllables in signed language, but that older infants would not. The infants watched videos consisting of well-formed and ill-formed fingerspelling, selected for two reasons.&#160; First, syllables in fluent fingerspelling are theorized to obey sonority-based phonological restrictions8, providing an opportunity to produce experimental contrasts that directly test whether infants are sensitive to sonority-based cues in early language learning. Second, we chose fingerspelling instead of full signs on the body and face because fingerspelling allowed us to more rigorously control possible perceptual confounds including the speed and size of hand movements, compared to full signs that vary greatly in signing space and movement speed. Our study used videos showing only the hands, but this paradigm is generalizable to videos showing signers and speakers&#39;&#160;heads or full bodies, or even showing animals or inanimate objects, depending on the scientific question and contrasts being studied.
The value using a preferential looking preference paradigm to measure sensitivity to language or sensory contrasts is in its relative simplicity and ease of control. In such paradigms, infants are presented with two stimuli side-by-side which differ by only one dimension or one feature relevant to the research question. Infants are given opportunities to foveate on either stimulus. Total looking times towards each stimulus are recorded and analyzed. A significant difference in looking behavior for the two stimuli indicates that the infant may be capable of perceiving the dimension with which the two stimuli differ. Because both stimuli are shown at the same time and at equal durations, the overall experiment is well-controlled for the idiosyncrasies of infant behavior (inattentiveness, looking elsewhere, fussiness, crying). That is in comparison to other paradigms where stimuli are shown sequentially, in which case, infants may spontaneously show different amounts of attention towards different stimuli for reasons unrelated to the stimuli (e.g., fussier during a period where there were more trials of Stimuli A than Stimuli B). Also, instructions and comprehension of the stimuli are not required; infants merely need to look at it. Last, this paradigm does not require actively monitoring infant behavior for criterion in order to change the stimuli presentation, as is common in infant-controlled habituation paradigms16,20. The looking preference paradigm is also suitable for testing hypotheses about looking preferences rather than differences. In other words, aside from infants being able to discriminate between Stimuli A and Stimuli B, researchers can also test for which stimuli elicited increased or decreased looking behavior, which may be informative about infants&#8217; nascent biases and emerging cognition.
More generally, the advantages of modern, non-invasive eyetracking technology are numerous. Eye tracking relies on measuring near infrared light which is emitted from the device and reflected off the participant&#8217;s eyes1,21. This infrared light is invisible, imperceptible, and completely safe. Eye tracking experiments require no instructions and depends only on passive viewing. Current models generate a copious amount of gaze data in a short amount of time with a simple setup. Infants can sit on their parent&#8217;s lap and, in our experience, they often enjoy the experiment. Most modern remote eye trackers do not require head restraints or items placed on the infant, and are robust to head movements, recovering quickly after blinking, crying, moving out of range, or looking away. If desired, saccade patterns, head position data, and pupillometry can be recorded in addition to eye position data.
The challenges in conducting infant eye tracking research are real, but not insurmountable. Eye tracking data can be noisy due to infants&#39;&#160;movement, inattention, fussiness, and sleepiness. Experiments must be designed so they can be completed in about 10 min or less - which can be an advantage in that lab visits are quick, but also a disadvantage if you need to obtain more data or have several experimental conditions. Another important caveat is that a null finding does not mean that infants are non-sensitive to the experimental manipulation. If infants show no significant difference between Stimuli A and Stimuli B, this finding could mean either (1) an insensitivity to the difference between A and B, or (2) a failure to elicit behavioral preferences. For example, perhaps the infant was equally fascinated by A and B, even though the infant was sensitive to the difference between them. This issue may be addressed by the addition of a second condition, ideally using the same (or highly similar) stimuli but testing along a different dimension for which it is known that infants do exhibit behavioral preferences. If infants do not demonstrate a preference in the first condition, but do so in the second, then it may be interpreted that the infants are capable of demonstrating looking preferences for the stimuli, which can help clarify the interpretation of any null results. Finally, it is vital to precisely calibrate the eye tracker. Calibration must be accurate, with both low spatial and temporal error, so that eye gaze data can be precisely mapped onto the experimental stimuli. In other words, &#34;your study is only as good as your calibration.&#34;&#160;Calibration checks before and after stimuli presentation can provide an added measure of confidence. Detailed and excellent reviews on calibrating eye tracking with infants have been published elsewhere1,21,22,23,24,25,26,27.&#160;

<table><tbody><tr><td>Eye Tracker</td><td>Tobii</td><td></td><td>Model X120</td></tr><tr><td>Experiment Presentation &amp;amp; Gaze Analysis Software</td><td>Tobii</td><td></td><td>Tobii Studio Pro</td></tr><tr><td>Experimenter Monitor</td><td>Dell</td><td></td><td>Dell Professional P2210 22&quot; Wide Monitor</td></tr><tr><td>Stimulus Monitor</td><td>Dell</td><td></td><td>Generic 17&quot; Monitor</td></tr><tr><td>CPU</td><td>Dell</td><td></td><td>Dell Precision T5500 Advanced with 2.13 Ghz Quad Core Intel Xeon Processor and 4 GB DDR3 Memory) with 250 GB SSD hard disk and standard video output cards.</td></tr><tr><td>Webcamera</td><td>Logitech</td><td></td><td>Logitech C150 HD Cam</td></tr><tr><td>Video Capture Card</td><td>Osprey</td><td></td><td>Osprey 230 Video Capture Card (to capture stimulus that is output to Stimulus Monitor)</td></tr></tbody></table>

exploring infant sensitivity to visual language using eye tracking and the preferential looking paradigm

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm

We discuss the use of the preferential looking paradigm in eye tracking studies in order to study how infants develop, understand, and attend to the world around them. Eye tracking is a safe and non-invasive way to collect gaze data from infants, and the preferential looking paradigm is simple to design and only requires the infant to be attending to the screen. By simultaneously showing two visual stimuli that differ in one dimension, we can assess whether infants show different looking behavior for either stimulus, thus demonstrating sensitivity to that difference. The challenges in such experimental approaches are that experiments must be kept brief (no more than 10 min) and be carefully controlled such that the two stimuli differ in only one way. The interpretation of null results must also be carefully considered. In this paper, we illustrate a successful example of an infant eye tracking study with a preferential looking paradigm to discover that 6-month-olds are sensitive to linguistic cues in a signed language despite having no prior exposure to signed language, suggesting that infants possess intrinsic or innate sensitivities to these cues.

The sample in Stone, et al.7 consisted of 16 younger infants (mean age = 5.6 ± 0.6 months; range = 4.4-6.7 months; 8 female) and 13 older infants (mean age = 11.8 ± 0.9 months; range = 10.6-12.8 months; 7 female). None of these infants had seen sign language before. First, we assessed for differences in total looking time between age groups, and found no significant difference (Means: 48.8 s vs. 36.7 s; t(27) = 1.71; p = 0.10). This rules out the possibility of extraneous age-related expl...

Eye tracking studies using a preferential looking paradigm can be used to study infants&#39;&#160;emerging understanding of, and attention to, their external visual world.

We discuss the use of the preferential looking paradigm in eye tracking studies in order to study how infants develop, understand, and attend to the world ...

exploring-infant-sensitivity-to-visual-language-using-eye-tracking

Research

JoVE Journal

Behavior

A reliable home-based way to assess the language comprehension of very young typically developing children, as well as those with autism, is described.  The method analyzes children's eye gaze while viewing side-by-side images but hearing an audio that matches only one image.  Stimuli are designed with young participants in mind.

Portable Intermodal Preferential Looking (IPL): Investigating Language Comprehension in Typically Developing Toddlers and Young Children with Autism

A method is described to quantify the quality of visual information processing based on reflexive eye movements in response to specific visual modalities. Reaction times and fixation output parameters are used to characterize visual performance in children with and without visual impairments from 6 months of age.

A Method to Quantify Visual Information Processing in Children Using Eye Tracking

The present article reviews an eye-tracking methodology for studies on language comprehension. To obtain reliable data, key steps of the protocol must be followed. Among these are the correct set-up of the eye tracker (e.g., ensuring good quality of the eye and head images) and accurate calibration.

Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects

The visual world paradigm monitors participants' eye movements in the visual workspace as they are listening to or speaking a spoken language. This paradigm can be used to investigate the online processing of a wide range of psycholinguistic questions, including semantically complex statements, such as disjunctive statements.

Using Eye Movements Recorded in the Visual World Paradigm to Explore the Online Processing of Spoken Language

We present a protocol to examine the use of morphological cues during real-time sentence comprehension by children with autism.

Using the Visual World Paradigm to Study Sentence Comprehension in Mandarin-Speaking Children with Autism

Young children do not passively observe the world, but rather actively explore and engage with their environment. This protocol provides guiding principles and practical recommendations for using head-mounted eye trackers to record infants' and toddlers' dynamic visual environments and visual attention in the context of natural behavior.

Gaze in Action: Head-mounted Eye Tracking of Children's Dynamic Visual Attention During Naturalistic Behavior

Here we present a protocol for familiarization-test paradigms which provide a direct test of infant categorization and help to define the role of language in early category learning.

Defining the Role Of Language in Infants' Object Categorization with Eye-tracking Paradigms

The method was designed to investigate the role of inhibition of return (IOR) in regressive eye movements during reading. The focus is on differentiating between regressions triggered as a result of comprehension difficulty versus those triggered from oculomotor error, including the role of IOR in the two types of regressions.

Eye-tracking to Distinguish Comprehension-based and Oculomotor-based Regressive Eye Movements During Reading

This experimental protocol combined eye tracking and the assessment of presaccadic visual sensitivity in a dual task paradigm, consisting of a free choice saccade task and a visual discrimination task, to investigate the deployment of visual spatial attention before both, accurate and averaging saccades.

Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity

Here, we present a protocol to examine the age-related decline in sentence processing using a maze task that allowed us to localize the processing difficulty at each word of the sentences during reading.

An Experimental Paradigm for Measuring the Effects of Ageing on Sentence Processing

Explore eye tracking and the preferential looking paradigm to study infant visual attention and language learning. This non-invasive method collects gaze data efficiently to understand how babies perceive environmental cues.

Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm

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