METODISKE OVERVEJELSER I FORBINDELSE MED UNDERSØGELSE AF SPÆDBØRNS KOGNITIVE UDVIKLING.

Siden 1960’erne har udviklingspsykologien gennemgået en rivende udvikling. En af de væsentligste grunde til denne succes har været den metodiske udvikling og det raffinement af undersøgelsesdesign, som man gennem disse år har været vidne til. I nærværende artikel skal vi se nærmere på nogle udvalgte metodiske problemstillinger, der de seneste år er blevet aktualiseret inden for spædbørns kognitive udvikling. Det drejer sig om anvendelse af ny teknologi i form af computerdisplays til fremvisning af testsekvenser og inddragelse af såkaldte EYE TRACKERE til registrering af barnets visuelle opmærksomhedsfokus. Det konkluderes, at inddragelse af ny teknologi (computerdisplays og EYE TRACKERE) indebærer ubetvivlelige fordele, men samtidig rummer en række potentielle faldgruber. I forlængelse heraf foreslås konkrete forslag til forsøg med henblik på afklaring af metodernes eventuelle begrænsninger

Meaningful Memory? Eighteen-Month-Olds Only Remember Cartoons With a Meaningful Storyline

In two studies we investigated the importance of a storyline for remembering cartoons across a delay of 2 weeks in 18-month-old infants by means of the visual paired-comparison (VPC) paradigm. In Study 1 seventy-one 18-month-olds were tested using similar cartoons as in a recent study from our lab while varying the richness of the storyline information. In a VPC task half of the infants watched uncompromised versions of the cartoons used in the recent study (Storyline Condition), whereas the other half watched Pixelized versions of the cartoons (number of pixels reduced by 98% covering up the narrative, but leaving perceptual details, e.g., colors, movements, the same, and Pixelized Condition). Two weeks later they were presented with the familiar cartoon and a novel cartoon from the same version (Storyline or Pixelized) simultaneously, while being eye-tracked. Results showed that only the infants in the Storyline Condition remembered the target cartoon, thus suggesting that the storyline is important for memory. However, an alternative interpretation of the results could be that what made the infants in the Storyline Condition remember the target cartoon was not the storyline, but the static conceptual information of the objects and agents present in the cartoon (which was not visible in the Pixelized version). To test this possibility, a control study was created. In Study 2 thirty-six infants were therefore presented with a version of the cartoon in which we broke down the temporal presentation into 1 s segments and presented these out of order. This was done to preserve the static conceptual information (e.g., objects and agents) while still disturbing the storyline. Results showed that the infants in this condition still did not remember the target cartoon, suggesting that the meaningfulness of the storyline – and not only static conceptual information – is important for later memory

Object Individuation or Object Movement as Attractor? A Replication of the Wide-Screen/Narrow-Screen Study by Means of (a) Standard Looking Time Methodology and (b) Eye Tracking

We report a replication experiment of a mechanized version of the seminal wide-screen/narrow-screen design of Wilcox and Baillargeon (1998) with 9.5-month-old infants (N=80). Two different methodologies were employed simultaneously: (a) the standard looking time paradigm and (b) eye tracking. Across conditions with three different screen sizes, the results from both methodologies revealed a clear and interesting pattern: the looking times increased as a significantly linear function of reduced screen sizes, that is, independently of the number of different objects involved. There was no indication in the data that the infants made use of the featural differences between the different-looking objects involved. The results suggest a simple, novel, and thought-provoking interpretation of the infants’ looking behavior in the wide-screen/narrow-screen design: moving objects are attractors, and the more space left for visible object movement in the visual field, the longer are infants’ looks. Consequently, no cognitive interpretation may be needed

Flexible, rapid and automatic neocortical word form acquisition mechanism in children as revealed by neuromagnetic brain response dynamics

Children learn new words and word forms with ease, often acquiring a new word after very few repetitions. Recent neurophysiological research on word form acquisition in adults indicates that novel words can be acquired within minutes of repetitive exposure to them, regardless of the individual's focused attention on the speech input. Although it is well-known that children surpass adults in language acquisition, the developmental aspects of such rapid and automatic neural acquisition mechanisms remain unexplored. To address this open question, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to scrutinise brain dynamics elicited by spoken words and word-like sounds in healthy monolingual (Danish) children throughout a 20-min repetitive passive exposure session. We found rapid neural dynamics manifested as an enhancement of early (~100 ms) brain activity over the short exposure session, with distinct spatiotemporal patterns for different novel sounds. For novel Danish word forms, signs of such enhancement were seen in the left temporal regions only, suggesting reliance on pre-existing language circuits for acquisition of novel word forms with native phonology. In contrast, exposure both to novel word forms with non-native phonology and to novel non-speech sounds led to activity enhancement in both left and right hemispheres, suggesting that more wide-spread cortical networks contribute to the build-up of memory traces for non-native and non-speech sounds. Similar studies in adults have previously reported more sluggish (~15–25 min, as opposed to 4 min in the present study) or non-existent neural dynamics for non-native sound acquisition, which might be indicative of a higher degree of plasticity in the children's brain. Overall, the results indicate a rapid and highly plastic mechanism for a dynamic build-up of memory traces for novel acoustic information in the children's brain that operates automatically and recruits bilateral temporal cortical circuits.Peer reviewe

ManyBabies 5: A large-scale investigation of the proposed shift from familiarity preference to novelty preference in infant looking time Pre-data collection manuscript for peer-review The ManyBabies 5 Team

International audienceMuch of our basic understanding of cognitive and social processes in infancy relies on measures of looking time, and specifically on infants' visual preference for a novel or familiar stimulus. However, despite being the foundation of many behavioral tasks in infant research, the determinants of infants' visual preferences are poorly understood, and differences in the expression of preferences can be difficult to interpret. In this large-scale study, we test predictions from the Hunter and Ames model of infants' visual preferences. 1 We investigate the effects of three factors predicted by this model to determine infants' preference for novel versus familiar stimuli: age, stimulus familiarity, and stimulus complexity. Drawing from a large and diverse sample of infant participants (N = XX), this study will provide crucial empirical evidence for a robust and generalizable model of infant visual preferences, leading to a more solid theoretical foundation for understanding the mechanisms that underlie infants' responses in common behavioral paradigms. Moreover, our findings will guide future studies that rely on infants' visual preferences to measure cognitive and social processes