Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 21, 2025
Exploring Infant Sensitivity to Visual Language using Eye Tracking and the Preferential Looking Paradigm
Published on: May 15, 2019
What Do Young Infants Do During Eye-Tracking Experiments? IP-BET - A Coding Scheme for Quantifying Spontaneous Infant
Przemysław Tomalski1, Anna Malinowska-Korczak1
1Neurocognitive Development Lab, Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland.
Insights
Infant eye-tracking studies reveal significant individual differences in extraneous behaviors like movement and self-regulation, even when attention to the screen is consistent. Parental interactions also play a role in infant looking tasks.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Infancy Research
- Behavioral Science
Background:
- Eye-tracking is a fundamental method in infancy research, yielding significant discoveries in developmental psychology.
- Infants' engagement in learning tasks differs from adults, with under-explored behavioral repertoires and testing constraints.
- Infants rely on parental presence and interaction during eye-tracking, potentially influencing task performance and self-regulation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To devise a systematic coding scheme for analyzing infant extraneous behaviors during eye-tracking.
- To investigate the influence of parental behaviors and dyadic interactions on infant looking tasks.
- To understand the variability in infant behavior during standard eye-tracking paradigms.
Main Methods:
- Developed a coding scheme to analyze task-relevant (screen attention) and extraneous infant behaviors (movement, self-touch, non-nutritive sucking, affect).
- Measured parental behaviors (screen/child attention, dyadic interactions) during eye-tracking sessions.
- Collected descriptive data from 94 typical 5- and 6-month-olds across three standard eye-tracking tasks and two seating arrangements.
Main Results:
- Most infants exhibited high and consistent attention to the screen.
- Significant individual differences were observed in limb/body movement and self-regulatory behaviors (non-nutritive sucking, self-touch, object manipulation).
- Parents primarily attended to the screen but also engaged in dyadic interactions, despite instructions to minimize interference.
Conclusions:
- Infant extraneous behaviors during eye-tracking are highly variable despite comparable screen attention.
- Spontaneous parent-infant interactions should be systematically considered in infant looking measurements.
- The developed coding scheme aids in understanding the dynamics of looking and task performance in infant research.
Abstract:
Eye-tracking measurement of looking is the fundamental method in infancy research. Over the last few decades it has provided many of the most significant discoveries in developmental psychology. Infants engage in looking tasks and use their bodies for learning differently from adults, yet, the breadth of their behavioural repertoire and the constraints that the testing situation places on them remain under-explored. Young infants are tested in close physical proximity to their parent, interact during the experiment and rely on the parent to stay engaged in the task. Infants may also engage a different set of skills (e.g. when self-regulating) to perform the very same looking tasks in comparison with adult participants. We devised a coding scheme to systematically analyse task-relevant (attention to the screen) and extraneous behaviours [body movement, self-touch, non-nutritive sucking (NNS), affect] that infants exhibit during an eye-tracking session. We also measured parental behaviours (attention to the screen or the child), including dyadic interactions with the infant (talking, physical contact). We outline the rationale for the scheme and present descriptive data on the behaviour of a large group of typical 5- and 6-month-olds (n = 94) during three standard eye-tracking tasks in two seating arrangements. The majority of infants showed very high and consistent within-group attention to the screen, while there were large individual differences in the amount of limb and body movement and the use of self-regulatory behaviours (NNS, self-touch, object manipulation). Very few sex differences were found. Parents spent most time attending to the screen, but engaged in some forms of dyadic interaction, despite being given standard task instructions that minimise parental interference. Our results demonstrate the variability in infants' extraneous behaviours during standard eye-tracking despite comparable duration of attention to the screen. They show that spontaneous interactions with the parent should be more systematically considered as an integral part of the measurement of infant looking. We discuss the utility of our scheme to better understand the dynamics of looking and task performance in infant looking paradigms: those involving eye-tracking and those measuring looking duration.
