Data and analysis script for infant and adult eye movement in an adapted ocular-motor serial reaction time task assessing procedural memory.

This article provides a description of eye movement data collected during an ocular-motor serial reaction time task. Raw gaze data files for 63 infants and 24 adults along with the data processing and analysis script for extracting saccade latencies, summarizing participants' performance, and testing statistical differences, are hosted on Open Science Framework (OSF). Files (in Matlab format) available for download allow for replication of the results reported in "Procedural memory in infancy: Evidence from implicit sequence learning in an eye-tracking paradigm" [1].

Procedural memory in infancy: Evidence from implicit sequence learning in an eye-tracking paradigm.

Procedural memory underpins the learning of skills and habits. It is often tested in children and adults with sequence learning on the serial reaction time (SRT) task, which involves manual motor control. However, due to infants' slowly developing control of motor actions, most procedures that require motor control cannot be examined in infancy. Here, we investigated procedural memory using an SRT task adapted for infants. During the task, images appeared at one of three locations on a screen, with the location order following a five-item recurring sequence. Three blocks of recurring sequences were followed by a random-order fourth block and finally another block of recurring sequences. Eye movement data were collected for infants (n = 35) and adults (n = 31). Reaction time was indexed by calculating the saccade latencies for orienting to each image as it appeared. The entire protocol took less than 3 min. Sequence learning in the SRT task can be operationalized as an increase in latencies in the random block as compared with the preceding and following sequence blocks. This pattern was observed in both the infants and adults. This study is the first to report learning in an SRT task in infants as young as 9  months. This SRT protocol is a promising procedure for measuring procedural memory in infants.

Changes in infant visual attention when observing repeated actions.

Infants' early visual preferences for faces, and their observational learning abilities, are well-established in the literature. The current study examines how infants' attention changes as they become increasingly familiar with a person and the actions that person is demonstrating. The looking patterns of 12- (n = 61) and 16-month-old infants (n = 29) were tracked while they watched videos of an adult presenting novel actions with four different objects three times. A face-to-action ratio in visual attention was calculated for each repetition and summarized as a mean across all videos. The face-to-action ratio increased with each action repetition, indicating that there was an increase in attention to the face relative to the action each additional time the action was demonstrated. Infant's prior familiarity with the object used was related to face-to-action ratio in 12-month-olds and initial looking behavior was related to face-to-action ratio in the whole sample. Prior familiarity with the presenter, and infant gender and age, were not related to face-to-action ratio. This study has theoretical implications for face preference and action observations in dynamic contexts.

A qualitative analysis of email interactions of children who use augmentative and alternative communication.

The aim of this study was to introduce email as a form of interaction for a group of six children who used augmentative and alternative communication. In a 12-week exploratory study, aspects of the email messages sent were analyzed. The content of the messages was analyzed by an inductive qualitative method, and seven descriptive categories emerged. The most frequently occurring categories were Social Etiquette, Personal/Family Statistics and Personal Common Ground. The children utilized different email strategies that included use of most of the above-mentioned categories. Through the email writing practice, the children developed new social skills and increased their social participation. Email practice may be a good strategy to increase children's social networks.