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Infant Language Lab
Infants are with their parents at all times during this research. Your infant will be seated on your lap about five feet in front of a large screen television. The studies are conducted in a sound proof room located in the ENT clinic of Riley Hospital for Children.
In one type of study, we record mothers speaking and singing to their babies. In other studies, we use the Visual Habituation (VH) procedure and the Preferential Looking Paradigm (PLP). We present to the babies pictures and animated videos on the TV as well as recordings of words, sentences, and other speech sounds.
A video camera is used to record how long infants look at the pictures or videos on the television. The videos are not used for any purposes other than research and are coded by subject number to protect confidentiality.
During testing, parents wear headphones playing music. This is to ensure that they are unaware of the sounds being presented and do not inadvertently influence their baby's responses. They are instructed to simply remain seated during the experiment and to keep their baby comfortably positioned towards the television monitor. At the parent's request, we will play the speech for them after the experiment so they can hear what was presented.
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Multimodal Language Lab
Infants are with their parents at all times during this research. There are two main research projects going on right now in the lab:
Infants' perception of auditory and visual speech:
Infants are seated on their caregiver's lap a few feet in front of a large screen television. The studies are conducted in a sound proof room located in the ENT clinic of Riley Hospital for Children. In these studies, we use the Visual Habituation (VH) procedure, the Preferential Looking Paradigm (PLP), and the Visual Preference Procedure (VPP). We want to know how babies (both normal-hearing babies and babies with hearing loss) learn to match up what they hear with what they see, so we present to the babies pictures of people or objects as well as recordings of words, sentences, and other speech sounds.
We have two methods of recording infants' reactions to the audiovisual speech:
- A video camera is used to record how long infants look at the pictures or videos on the television, and
- We have exciting new technology that tracks exactly where the infant looks on the television!
Do babies watch a talker's mouth or eyes or chin when listening to speech? We'll be able to find out the answer with an eye tracker that follows the movements of babies' eyes. Infants will also wear a cap with a little sensor called the "head tracker" that tells the eye tracker where the baby's head is.
During testing, parents wear headphones playing music. This is to ensure that they are unaware of the sounds being presented and do not inadvertently influence their baby's responses. Parents are instructed to simply remain seated during the experiment and to keep their baby comfortably positioned towards the television monitor. At the parent's request, we will play the speech for them after the experiment so they can hear what was presented.
Mothers' speech and singing to infants:
Mothers and infants will be seated on a blanket with some fun toys in a sound proof room located in the ENT clinic of Riley Hospital for Children. We audiotape and videotape mothers talking and singing to their babies as they normally would do at home. We also record mothers talking with one of the lab personnel, as well as singing the baby-song by themselves. We'd like to know the special ways mothers talk and sing to their babies!
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