On-line and implicit measurements of language and cognitive processing in children

这一建议以新的和创新的方式解决了有关人类发展的认知系统的基本和长期存在的问题。这些问题包括儿童如何快速而毫不费力地获得语言，他们如何开始记住过去并构想未来，以及语言和认知在幼儿期如何相互作用。调查这些问题需要的方法来访问的认知机制的处理，特别是在非语言的婴儿，和幼儿有限的语言。迄今为止，绝大多数关于发展的研究都集中在明确的、全球的和离线的处理措施上（例如，口头回应，指点）。这些措施是有限的，因为儿童的反应往往被认知和抑制需求所掩盖。因此，在对婴儿和儿童进行研究时，一个主要的挑战是确保研究方法在认知方面的要求不那么高，以至于参与者的基本知识被他们无法完成任务所掩盖。由于眼睛注视在很大程度上低于有意识控制的水平，因此眼动追踪提供了这样一种方法。我们正在申请眼动追踪设备，以便使用在线和隐式测量婴儿和儿童的语言和认知过程进行研究。这些设备将带来无法通过传统的公开行为措施解决的前沿研究，包括Fennell和Zamuner之间的一个项目，该项目涉及双语婴儿和儿童的语言处理和语音解码。所要求的眼动仪将用于加拿大科学技术博物馆（CSTM）的一个全新的尖端uOttawa生活实验室，并将使我们能够以快速和轻松的方式解决这一问题和其他重要的研究领域。uOttawa的Living Lab和CSTM之间的合作伙伴关系是加拿大第二个，也是安大略的第一个。在uOttawa Living Lab，参观者被邀请与他们的孩子一起参与关于语言和认知发展的研究，并积极为科学和发现的过程做出贡献。Living Lab和独特的眼动追踪技术的结合将是加拿大首个此类项目，并将使我们能够大幅提高我们的研究成果及其对科学界的影响。我们的研究结果也将对整个加拿大产生重要的影响，因为它谈到了双语对早期语言发展的影响。

This proposal addresses fundamental and long-standing questions about the cognitive systems underlying human development in new and innovative ways. These questions include how children acquire language rapidly and effortlessly, how they begin to remember the past and conceive of the future, and how language and cognition interact in early childhood. Investigating these issues requires methods to access the cognitive mechanisms of processing, especially in non-verbal infants, and toddlers with limited language. To date, the vast majority of studies on development focus on explicit, global, and off-line measures of processing (e.g., verbal responses, pointing). These measures are limited because children’s responses are often clouded by cognitive and inhibitory demands. Thus, a major challenge when working with infants and children is to ensure that a study’s methodology is not so cognitively demanding that participants’ underlying knowledge is masked by their inability to complete the task. Because eye gaze is largely below the level of conscious control, eye tracking provides such a methodology. We are requesting eye tracking equipment for conducting research using on-line and implicit measurements of language and cognitive processing in infants and children. This equipment will lead to cutting-edge research that cannot be addressed via traditional, overt behavioural measures, including a project between Fennell and Zamuner that addresses language processing and speech decoding in bilingual infants and children. The requested eye trackers will be used in a brand-new, cutting-edge uOttawa Living Lab at the Canada Science and Technology Museum (CSTM) and will allow us to address this and other important areas of research in a quick and labour-light manner. The partnership between uOttawa’s Living Lab and CSTM is only the second of its kind in Canada and the first in Ontario. At the uOttawa Living Lab visitors are invited to participate with their children on studies about language and cognitive development and to actively contribute to the process of science and discovery. The combination of a Living Lab and unique eyetracking technology will be a first-of-its-kind project in Canada and will allow us to dramatically increase our research output and its impact on the scientific community. The results of our research will also have important benefits for Canada as a whole as it speaks to the impact of bilingualism on early language development.