Eye-tracking device travels with toddlers

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Researchers have designed a light, mobile and wireless device that allows them to track infants’ gaze as they explore their environment, according to a study published in November in Child Development¹.

The tool may allow researchers to better understand how infants with autism perceive their surroundings.

Several studies have described attention deficits in children and adults with autism, such as avoiding making eye contact. These studies typically use eye-tracking headgear that allows researchers to follow an individual’s gaze.

For example, in a 2002 study, researchers showed that when watching the movie Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, people with autism follow completely different parts of a scene than controls do². Eye-tracking devices can also be used to identify very young children who are at risk of developing autism, researchers say.

In the new study, researchers designed a device that allows them to combine the detail of eye-tracking devices with the mobility of head-mounted cameras Head-cams typically allow researchers to see what infants are looking at, but not which specific feature they are paying attention to.

The new tool consists of a camera mounted on a monocle that tracks pupil diameter and direction, combined with a traditional ‘scene camera’ that faces outwards, and a small wireless transmitter and battery pack on a fitted vest.

When researchers tested the device with 44 typical children at 14 months of age, all but 4 willingly wore the device as they walked around a room littered with toys.

Eye-tracking studies usually monitor a fixed interaction, such as a child’s response to a video or to a few toys on a table. In the new study, the researchers monitored gaze during five-second windows before and after a defined event, such as hearing a mother’s voice.

The six children studied in a preliminary experiment looked at their mothers significantly more often after she talked to them than before, the study found. They were also more likely to look at their mothers if the mothers were nearby and asked a question such as “Where’s the ball?” instead of a general comment such as “Good job.”

Surprisingly, only about 16 percent of children looked at their mothers’ face during this interaction, as opposed to her hands or body. This could be because it is difficult for the children to look up at faces from their position on the floor, the researchers say.