Gaze Durations in Infancy

当婴儿看着某人的脸或看着一个物体时，他们正在了解这个世界。但父母和科学家都不知道婴儿会看一张给定的脸或物体多长时间。这项研究测试了这样一种假设，即婴儿之前看目标的持续时间预测了下一次看目标的持续时间。这被称为时间依赖假说。它表明，婴儿在生命早期就应该规范自己的行为，从周围环境中学习。时间依赖假说将在来自美国东南部的多种族婴儿群体中进行评估。在出生第一年的几次探视中，婴儿与母亲互动并观看人和物体的视频时，将测量婴儿的个体长相。在这些活动中，个别婴儿可能有一个更好的时间依赖水平，这表明他们的过去外表预测他们未来的外表有多强。更大的时间依赖性被认为反映了更大的自律。该项目将评估更多的时间依赖性是否预示着一岁半孩子的沟通和自我调节水平更高。该项目结合了对社交和认知发展的研究，以了解视觉探索的行为基础。它测试了一个假说，该假说可能描述了与儿童学习相关的其他行为，如反应时间。研究结果将有助于理解自闭症等发育障碍，以及机器人等具有逼真和有效外观行为的新技术的发展。为了最大限度地发挥这种影响，将与其他研究人员共享项目资源，如婴儿行为的数字录音。

When infants look at someone's face or at an object, they are learning about the world. But neither parents nor scientists know how long an infant will look at a given face or object. This study tests the hypothesis that the durations of an infant's previous looks at a target predict the duration of the next look at the target. This is called the temporal dependency hypothesis. It suggests that infants regulate their own behavior to learn from their environment early in life. The temporal dependency hypothesis will be evaluated in a multi-ethnic group of infants from the Southeastern United States. During several visits in the first year of life, individual infant looks will be measured as infants interact with their mothers, and watch videos of people and objects. During each of these activities, individual infants may have a preferred level of temporal dependency that indicates how strongly their past looks predict their next looks. Greater temporal dependency is believed to reflect greater self-regulation. The project will assess whether greater temporal dependency predicts higher levels of communication and self-regulation at a year and a half of age.The project unites research on social and cognitive development to understand the behavioral bases of visual exploration. It tests a hypothesis that may characterize other behaviors relevant to children's learning such as reaction times. Results will inform understanding of developmental disorders such as autism, and the development of new technologies such as robots with realistic and effective looking behaviors. To maximize this impact, project resources such as digital recordings of infant behavior will be shared with other researchers.