Ane Theimann
Ane Theimann's project aims to investigate the ability of Norwegian-speaking toddlers to predict language and action movements using three eye-tracking tasks. The project will collect data for two studies that examine different aspects of linguistic and non-linguistic prediction. The eye-tracking tasks have been specifically designed to assess semantic prediction, action prediction, and grammatical prediction in toddlers, respectively. The first study will compare toddlers' ability of linguistic and non-linguistic prediction, specifically semantic and action movements prediction. The second study will investigate whether children can predict the number of items based on number-marked determinatives (“den” and “de”). Approximately 40 toddlers (based on results of power analysis) will be tested with eye-tracking technology, using the visual world paradigm. Participants’ eye movements will be measured while they are presented with linguistic or action movements stimuli. A control group of 20 adults are also being tested for task reliability. Overall, this project will contribute to the fields of language development and prediction by providing new insights into the ability of toddlers to predict linguistic and non-linguistic information. The studies are part of Ane Theimann’s doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Franziska Köder, Monica Norvik and Nivedita Mani.
Audun Rosslund
Illusory brightness is the visual experience of an apparent central region of 'glare' as if there were about to happen a physical increase in light, when looking at converging gradients. In adults, illusory brightness is accompanied by a spontaneous and rapid contraction of the pupil, which reveals the ‘constraints’ used by the visual system when constructing visual scenes or objects. Yet, the origins of this pupil response remain unclear. Audun Rosslund's study aims to examine whether this pupil response is already present in preverbal infants at 5 months of age, as already documented in adults. No pupillary change to the illusion would indicate that the involuntary response requires maturation within the visual system, possibly together with extended exposure to natural glare in the child’s environment. However, if infants show pupillary constrictions to illusory bright stimuli, this will constitute evidence that this may be one of the earliest visual illusions to develop or possibly already hard-wired as a protective mechanism against glare.
Laura Bishop
Classically-trained pianists normally use musical scores to guide their performance. Research on sight-reading has shown how pianists extract information from an unfamiliar score, but few studies have explored how visual attention to the score changes following rehearsal. Laura Bishop's study investigates how pianists' use of musical scores changes across a period of rehearsal. The overarching hypothesis is that score-directed gaze is shaped by pianists' developing memory of the music, and that following rehearsal, they consistently fixate a few specific landmarks in the score each time they play, corresponding to points of high difficulty and important structural content. Pianists will be invited to complete a set of tasks that involve reading unfamiliar music, practicing the music, then performing it again using the score; they will also perform some of their own repertoire that they have been learning, using their own scores and a different version of the scores. In the study eye-tracking will be used to examine where in the score pianists visually attend. Pupillometry, motion capture data, and musical data will also be collected and used to index musical difficulty and performance success. The results will enable improved understanding of how the visual modality contributes to musical memory.