Eye movement studies
A child's attention towards an object, a word or a social interaction is an indication of their understanding of the world. One way to measure attention is by looking at the child's eye movements. This method can be used very well with young children who are not yet able to communicate verbally.
In these studies, your child watches short, child-appropriate video sequences. While your child is looking at the screen, we can measure whether it directs its attention to certain scenes that we play for her. We record your child's eye movements with a special camera. This camera is called an eye tracker as it tracks the movement of a person's pupils on the screen. Thanks to this advanced technology, we gain accurate information about when your child is looking where, and also how long it watches a certain video clip. The information collected can then be analyzed and interpreted. Thereby we are able to draw conclusions about the cognitive and social-cognitive abilities of children.
This method is completely harmless and your child will not even notice the eye-tracker recordings. You will stay close to your child during the entire duration of the study, which is normally 5-10 minutes.
At the end of the study, your child will receive a small gift as a thank you.