{"id":389,"date":"2016-11-09T21:27:05","date_gmt":"2016-11-09T21:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/curiosity\/?page_id=389"},"modified":"2017-10-23T21:43:50","modified_gmt":"2017-10-23T21:43:50","slug":"our-studies","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/curiosity\/our-studies\/","title":{"rendered":"Our studies"},"content":{"rendered":"

What do babies look at?<\/h3>\n
\"eyetracking\"

A typical eye tracking study<\/p><\/div>\n

Because we know that babies and toddlers look for longer at things they find interesting<\/a>, we can time how long they look at pictures to tell us about what they’re learning. To do this, we show them pictures on a computer screen and use eye-trackers to record where they look, and for how long. In an eye-tracking study, children\u00a0either sit on their caregiver’s lap or in a high-chair in front of a computer screen.\u00a0The eye-tracker is\u00a0a small box that sits underneath the\u00a0screen.\u00a0Because the pupils of the eye are darker than the surrounding iris, the eye-tracker can compute where\u00a0children are looking and for how long. These studies\u00a0last for a few minutes at most, and\u00a0allow us to explore what babies\u00a0have learned from what we show them, and what they find interesting. Our first studies<\/a>\u00a0of curiosity-based learning\u00a0show\u00a0that one-year-olds are systematic learners\u00a0who repeatedly compare\u00a0similar images.<\/p>\n

Importantly to the Curiosity Project, we know that children play an active role in their own learning – they choose what to look at, and for how long.\u00a0To explore this active learning, we will also be using a cutting-edge eye-tracking technique known as\u00a0gaze contingent<\/em> eye-tracking.\u00a0In these studies we will show children images on a computer screen, but this time, where they look changes what they see. Amazingly, recent research using this method has shown that babies as young as 6- to 8-months-old can learn to control what they see by looking in a particular place<\/a>. We use gaze-contingent eye-tracking to explore how babies can choose what to learn from based on their own curiosity.<\/p>\n

What do toddlers\u00a0play with?<\/h3>\n
\"d7h_6405\"

A little scientist having fun at Lancaster Babylab<\/p><\/div>\n

Recording where children look in this way\u00a0has told us a lot about how what they see determines what they learn. But learning in the real world is\u00a0different: once they learn how to reach and grasp,\u00a0children have control over what\u00a0they are learning from. They can move objects closer, turn them around for a different view, hold more than one object at once – and in doing so, they construct their own learning environment. However, as yet we don’t know what children learn best from: for example,\u00a0when you let a toddler play freely, will s\/he prefer to learn from challenging toys, or simple ones? Because almost all of children’s day-to-day learning\u00a0happens through play, it’s important for us to understand what happens during this curiosity-based exploration.<\/p>\n

\"novel3d\"

An example of one of our specially-designed 3D-printed toys. Designed by Marina Loucaides.<\/p><\/div>\n

We\u00a0use new technology to conduct\u00a0some of the first studies into toddler’s real-world, curiosity-based learning.\u00a0We give toddlers specially-designed, 3D printed toys and let them\u00a0play. First, we first\u00a0record what\u00a0they play with and for how long, to explore whether they pick toys up in a particular order; for example, do they start off with the simple toys then work their way up to the complex ones? At the same time,\u00a0we use head-mounted eye-trackers<\/a>\u00a0to shed light on\u00a0exactly what toddlers see during play.\u00a0This exciting new technology consists of a non-invasive, lightweight headset with two small cameras that record the child’s eye and their visual scene. Linking these two video feeds\u00a0allows us to calculate exactly what toddlers are looking at, giving us a detailed picture of what toddlers choose to learn from.<\/p>\n

\"\"

A happy baby taking part in Marina Loucaides’ new study<\/p><\/div>\n

Marina Loucaides<\/a>‘ doctoral research takes this technique further, looking at how two-year-olds\u00a0learn when\u00a0they hear names for the objects they’re playing with.\u00a0Importantly, these studies\u00a0will show\u00a0how children learn in the real world, allowing future researchers\u00a0to develop new ways of supporting early\u00a0development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do babies look at? Because we know that babies and toddlers look for longer at things they find interesting, we can time how long they look at pictures to tell us about what they’re learning. To do this, we show them pictures on a computer screen and use eye-trackers to record where they look, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":380,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-389","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P9rqQW-6h","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/curiosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/curiosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/curiosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/curiosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/380"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/curiosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/curiosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":467,"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/curiosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/389\/revisions\/467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wp.lancs.ac.uk\/curiosity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}