Quantitative Linking Hypotheses for Infant Eye Movements

The study of cognitive development hinges, largely, on the analysis of infant looking. But analyses of eye gaze data require the adoption of linking hypotheses: assumptions about the relationship between observed eye movements and underlying cognitive processes. We develop a general framework for constructing, testing, and comparing these hypotheses, and thus for producing new insights into early cognitive development. We first introduce the general framework – applicable to any infant gaze experiment – and then demonstrate its utility by analyzing data from a set of experiments investigating the role of attentional cues in infant learning. The new analysis uncovers significantly more structure in these data, finding evidence of learning that was not found in standard analyses and showing an unexpected relationship between cue use and learning rate. Finally, we discuss general implications for the construction and testing of quantitative linking hypotheses. MATLAB code for sample linking hypotheses can be found on the first author's website.

认知发展研究在很大程度上依托于对婴儿注视行为的分析。但眼动数据分析需采用关联假设（linking hypotheses）：即明确观测到的眼球运动与潜在认知过程之间关联的预设。我们构建了一套通用框架，可用于构建、检验与比较此类假设，进而为早期认知发展研究提供全新洞见。我们首先介绍这套适用于所有婴儿眼动实验的通用框架，随后通过分析一组探究注意线索在婴儿学习中作用的实验数据，验证该框架的实用价值。新的分析方法从这批数据中挖掘出显著更多的结构信息，发现了标准分析未能识别的学习证据，并揭示了线索使用与学习速率之间的意外关联。最后，我们探讨了构建与检验量化关联假设的通用启示。用于生成示例关联假设的MATLAB代码可在第一作者的个人网站获取。