Yesterday Amélie was awarded her first University Degree, in infant science, for her ‘outstanding contribution to developmental psychology’.
I took her to the Babylab, the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development which is part of the University of London, to take part in some new research. The project aims to investigate links between genes and brain development. She will go back to the lab on two further occassions for this study. She took part in two exercises for which she sat on my lap in front of a large plasma screen. Two different animations were played whilst her eye movements were recorded. I had to keep my eyes closed in case my body language affected her movements.
The first was The Gap Study which studies babies’ ability to look away from an animation presented in the middle of a screen when another identical animation is presented to the left or right of the screen. It takes longer to look at the second animation when the first animation remains on the screen. This has been called the ‘Gap Effect’. Infants younger than three months find it difficult to look away from something that has caught their attention. This ‘sticky fixation’ can lead to frustration in young infants when they cannot move their eyes to something new. At around four months, Amélie’s age, babies seem to be able to move their attention more freely but it will take them alot longer when the second animation is presented whilst the first is still present.
The second was The Anticipation Study. In this study animations are presented in a right-left pattern in grey squares on the screen. Babies as young as three to four months are able to learn to anticipate where the next event will occur, ie where the next animation will appear and will gradually start looking at the location where they expect the next event before it actually happens.
As the project aims to examine six specific genes thought to be related to brain development Amélie also had to provide a DNA sample. For this I had to rub a cotton wool bud on the inside of her cheek to catch some cells.