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Technical University of Munich

Ontogeny

Comparative, Emergence, Eye-tracking & EEG

Our research investigates how infants explore their environment and whether they adapt their learning and exploration to the changing environment. This ability, known as ecological learning, has been demonstrated in children as young as three. Findings about whether infants can do this allow us to better understand the early emergence and mechanisms of ecological learning. To address the questions we focus on, we developed eye-tracking and EEG paradigms to investigate how infants and toddlers aged 10 to 36 months actively explore visual stimuli and real-life novel objects.

For example, in a recent study, toddlers (N = 60, 18-36 months) and adults (N = 42) either learnt that an animal was equally likely to be found in any of four available locations, or that it was most likely to be found in one particular location. Afterwards, they were given control of a torchlight, which they could move with their eyes to explore the otherwise pitch-black task environment. Eye-movement data and Markov models show that, from 24 months of age, toddlers become more exploratory than adults, and start adapting their exploratory strategies to the information structure of the task. These results show that toddlers’ search strategies are more sophisticated than previously thought, and identify the unique features that distinguish their information search from adults’.

Selected publication(s):

Fig. 1: The gaze-contingent torchlight task. A Participants were presented with two within-subject conditions, Skewed and Uniform, each consisting of two blocks (numbered 1–4) composed of training and test trials. Each trial had a specific level of darkness (a qualitative indication is reported by the squares on the right). B During the training phase, participants observed 8 trials where an animal jumped out of a treasure chest, moved upward, and disappeared at the top of the screen in one of four differently colored areas. The animal then briefly reappeared at its disappearance location. Throughout training, the screen gradually became darker to familiarize participants with the gaze-contingent torchlight (the lighter circle shows an example of the torchlight). In the Skewed condition, the animal consistently appeared in the same colored area. In the Uniform condition, the animal appeared in a different colored area each time. In both conditions, the treasure chest always reliably indicated the target location. C At test, the screen was completely dark, and participants could only hear the animal jumping out of the treasure chest. They were then given up to 10 s to search for the target animal using the torchlight (i.e., the search phase). Since they knew the animal appeared only briefly, participants were motivated to find its hiding location before it appeared, so as not to miss it. In the Skewed condition, the animal appeared as soon as participants identified its location; in the Uniform condition, the animal appeared only after participants had found the cue (i.e., the treasure chest) and used that information to identify the correct target location. D Examples of the most efficient search in the Skewed (left) and Uniform (right) conditions. In the Skewed condition, the first look is already located within the correct portion of the screen, indicating that the participant exploited the information structure acquired during familiarization to correctly anticipate the target location. In the Uniform condition, the participant engages in more scanning behavior to find the cue, which informs them about the location of the target. [Treasure chest images with copyright from Babysofja via Creative Market and animal images freely available from Prora via Pixabay].
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