Sustained visual attention is more than seeing

Sustained visual attention is a well-studied cognitive capacity that is relevant to many developmental outcomes. The development of visual attention is often construed as an increased capacity to exert top-down internal control. We demonstrate that sustained visual attention, measured in terms of momentary eye gaze, emerges from and is tightly tied to sensory-motor coordination. Specifically, we examined whether and how changes in manual behavior alter toddlers’ eye gaze during toy play. We manipulated manual behavior by giving one group of children heavy toys that were hard to pick up and giving another group of children perceptually identical toys that were lighter and easy to pick up and hold. We found a tight temporal coupling of visual attention with the duration of manual activities on the objects, a relation that cannot be explained by interest alone. Toddlers in the heavy-object condition looked at objects as much as toddlers in the light-object condition but did so through many brief glances, whereas looks to the same objects were longer and sustained in the light-object condition. We explain the results based on the mechanism of hand–eye coordination and discuss its implications for the development of visual attention

Social robots as psychometric tools for cognitive assessment: a pilot test

Recent research demonstrated the benefits of employing robots as therapeutic assistants and caregivers, but very little is known on the use of robots as a tool for psychological assessment. Socially capable robots can provide many advantages to diagnostic practice: engage people, guarantee standardized administration and assessor neutrality, perform automatic recording of subject behaviors for further analysis by practitioners. In this paper, we present a pilot study on testing people’s cognitive functioning via social interaction with a humanoid robot. To this end, we programmed a social robot to administer a psychometric tool for detecting Mild Cognitive Impairment, a risk factor for dementia, implementing the first prototype of robotic assistant for mass screening of elderly population. Finally, we present a pilot test of the robotic procedure with healthy adults that show promising results of the robotic test, also compared to its traditional paper version

Bi-allelic Loss-of-Function CACNA1B Mutations in Progressive Epilepsy-Dyskinesia.

The occurrence of non-epileptic hyperkinetic movements in the context of developmental epileptic encephalopathies is an increasingly recognized phenomenon. Identification of causative mutations provides an important insight into common pathogenic mechanisms that cause both seizures and abnormal motor control. We report bi-allelic loss-of-function CACNA1B variants in six children from three unrelated families whose affected members present with a complex and progressive neurological syndrome. All affected individuals presented with epileptic encephalopathy, severe neurodevelopmental delay (often with regression), and a hyperkinetic movement disorder. Additional neurological features included postnatal microcephaly and hypotonia. Five children died in childhood or adolescence (mean age of death: 9 years), mainly as a result of secondary respiratory complications. CACNA1B encodes the pore-forming subunit of the pre-synaptic neuronal voltage-gated calcium channel Cav2.2/N-type, crucial for SNARE-mediated neurotransmission, particularly in the early postnatal period. Bi-allelic loss-of-function variants in CACNA1B are predicted to cause disruption of Ca2+ influx, leading to impaired synaptic neurotransmission. The resultant effect on neuronal function is likely to be important in the development of involuntary movements and epilepsy. Overall, our findings provide further evidence for the key role of Cav2.2 in normal human neurodevelopment.MAK is funded by an NIHR Research Professorship and receives funding from the Wellcome Trust, Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital Charity, and Rosetrees Trust. E.M. received funding from the Rosetrees Trust (CD-A53) and Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity. K.G. received funding from Temple Street Foundation. A.M. is funded by Great Ormond Street Hospital, the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), and Biomedical Research Centre. F.L.R. and D.G. are funded by Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre. K.C. and A.S.J. are funded by NIHR Bioresource for Rare Diseases. The DDD Study presents independent research commissioned by the Health Innovation Challenge Fund (grant number HICF-1009-003), a parallel funding partnership between the Wellcome Trust and the Department of Health, and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (grant number WT098051). We acknowledge support from the UK Department of Health via the NIHR comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre award to Guy's and St. Thomas' National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust in partnership with King's College London. This research was also supported by the NIHR Great Ormond Street Hospital Biomedical Research Centre. J.H.C. is in receipt of an NIHR Senior Investigator Award. The research team acknowledges the support of the NIHR through the Comprehensive Clinical Research Network. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR, Department of Health, or Wellcome Trust. E.R.M. acknowledges support from NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, an NIHR Senior Investigator Award, and the University of Cambridge has received salary support in respect of E.R.M. from the NHS in the East of England through the Clinical Academic Reserve. I.E.S. is supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (Program Grant and Practitioner Fellowship)

Infants’ Visual Attention While Viewing Naturalistic Actions

Cues such as directed gaze, facial expressions, and manual gestures provide rich information that facilitates social interactions. Using looking time methods, previous studies have found that infants prefer faces to non-face stimuli (Mondloch et al., 1999; Morton & Johnson, 1991), discriminate biological from non-biological motion (Bertenthal et al., 1987; Simion et al., 2008), and are sensitive to others’ gaze and eye contact (Hood et al., 1998; Farroni et al., 2002). These, however, have been examined in isolation. Here we present a new eye tracking paradigm for dynamically studying infants’ and adults’ visual attention to competing social cues while viewing naturalistic action sequences, to more precisely examine how and when visual attention shifts and how this varies with age. Sixteen video stimuli (average duration = 24 sec) were produced with five female actors performing infant-directed actions (e.g., pouring into a mug, placing a bow on a box; see Figure 1). Eight- and twelve-month-old infants and adults (N = 62) were shown these videos while gaze was measured with a Tobii corneal reflection eye-tracking system. Areas of interest dynamically defined the actor’s face, hands, and objects (see Figure 2). The actor’s social cue events (e.g., smiling, speaking, eye contact, and reaching for, grasping, and holding the objects) were observationally coded. The data reveal strong correlations between the two groups of infants and adults, though infants’ fixations lagged behind adults’ by about 250ms (see Figure 3). Furthermore, infants responded to triadic relations differently than adults, and whereas12-month-old infants attend more to actions and objects, 8-month-old infants consistently attend more to the actors’ faces. Additional analyses reveal adults are more sensitive to observationally coded social cues (e.g., smiling, speaking, and eye contact). These results highlight the importance of fine-grained spatiotemporal analyses and suggest development of sensitivity to social cues beyond the first year

Infants’ Eye Movements While Viewing Naturalistic Actions

Cues such as directed gaze, facial expressions, and manual gestures provide rich information that facilitates social interactions. Using looking time methods, previous studies have found that infants prefer faces to non-face stimuli (Mondloch et al., 1999; Morton & Johnson, 1991), discriminate biological from non-biological motion (Bertenthal et al., 1987; Simion et al., 2008), and are sensitive to others’ gaze and eye contact (Hood et al., 1998; Farroni et al., 2002). These, however, have been examined in isolation. Here we present a new eye tracking paradigm for dynamically studying infants’ and adults’ visual attention to competing social cues while viewing naturalistic action sequences, to more precisely examine how and when visual attention shifts and how this varies with age. Sixteen video stimuli (average duration = 24 sec) were produced with five female actors performing infant-directed actions (e.g., pouring into a mug, placing a bow on a box; see Figure 1). Eight- and twelve-month-old infants and adults (N = 62) were shown these videos while gaze was measured with a Tobii corneal reflection eye-tracking system. Areas of interest dynamically defined the actor’s face, hands, and objects (see Figure 2). The actor’s social cue events (e.g., smiling, speaking, eye contact, and reaching for, grasping, and holding the objects) were observationally coded. The data reveal strong correlations between the two groups of infants and adults, though infants’ fixations lagged behind adults’ by about 250ms (see Figure 3). Furthermore, infants responded to triadic relations differently than adults, and whereas12-month-old infants attend more to actions and objects, 8-month-old infants consistently attend more to the actors’ faces. Additional analyses reveal adults are more sensitive to observationally coded social cues (e.g., smiling, speaking, and eye contact). These results highlight the importance of fine-grained spatiotemporal analyses and suggest development of sensitivity to social cues beyond the first year

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

Young children's visual environments are dynamic, changing moment-by-moment as children physically and visually explore spaces and objects and interact with people around them. Head-mounted eye tracking offers a unique opportunity to capture children's dynamic egocentric views and how they allocate visual attention within those views. This protocol provides guiding principles and practical recommendations for researchers using head-mounted eye trackers in both laboratory and more naturalistic settings. Head-mounted eye tracking complements other experimental methods by enhancing opportunities for data collection in more ecologically valid contexts through increased portability and freedom of head and body movements compared to screen-based eye tracking. This protocol can also be integrated with other technologies, such as motion tracking and heart-rate monitoring, to provide a high-density multimodal dataset for examining natural behavior, learning, and development than previously possible. This paper illustrates the types of data generated from head-mounted eye tracking in a study designed to investigate visual attention in one natural context for toddlers: free-flowing toy play with a parent. Successful use of this protocol will allow researchers to collect data that can be used to answer questions not only about visual attention, but also about a broad range of other perceptual, cognitive, and social skills and their development

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

Young children's visual environments are dynamic, changing moment-by-moment as children physically and visually explore spaces and objects and interact with people around them. Head-mounted eye tracking offers a unique opportunity to capture children's dynamic egocentric views and how they allocate visual attention within those views. This protocol provides guiding principles and practical recommendations for researchers using head-mounted eye trackers in both laboratory and more naturalistic settings. Head-mounted eye tracking complements other experimental methods by enhancing opportunities for data collection in more ecologically valid contexts through increased portability and freedom of head and body movements compared to screen-based eye tracking. This protocol can also be integrated with other technologies, such as motion tracking and heart-rate monitoring, to provide a high-density multimodal dataset for examining natural behavior, learning, and development than previously possible. This paper illustrates the types of data generated from head-mounted eye tracking in a study designed to investigate visual attention in one natural context for toddlers: free-flowing toy play with a parent. Successful use of this protocol will allow researchers to collect data that can be used to answer questions not only about visual attention, but also about a broad range of other perceptual, cognitive, and social skills and their development

Peekbank: Exploring children's word recognition through an open, large-scale repository for developmental eye-tracking data

The ability to rapidly recognize words and link them to referents in context is central to children's early language development. This ability, often called word recognition in the developmental literature, is typically studied in the looking-while-listening paradigm, which measures infants' fixation on a target object (vs. a distractor) after hearing a target label. We present a large-scale, open database of infant and toddler eye-tracking data from looking-while-listening tasks. The goal of this effort is to address theoretical and methodological challenges in measuring vocabulary development. We present two analyses of the current database (N=1,320): (1) capturing age-related changes in infants' word recognition while generalizing across item-level variability and (2) assessing how a central methodological decision -- selecting the time window of analysis -- impacts the reliability of measurement. Future efforts will expand the scope of the current database to advance our understanding of participant-level and item-level variation in children's vocabulary development