Size and luminance of all stimuli were also matched to ensure that high- and low-level stimulus differences could not influence this study (see Figure 1). Participants were seated on a chair in front of a 17” TFT Tobii T60 monitor. Images were presented on the monitor using Tobii Studio software (Tobii Technology AB; www.tobii.com). During stimulus presentation, the Tobii monitor recorded gaze location for both eyes based on the reflection
of near-infrared light from the cornea and pupil. Gaze information was sampled at a frequency of 60 Hz. Monitor specifications included an accuracy of 0.5 degrees of the visual angle and a tolerance of head movements within a range of 44 × 22 × 30 cm. Electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded continuously throughout the ERP task using a 128-channel HydroCel Geodesic Sensor Net (HCGSN), which was referenced on-line to vertex (Cz). For a subset of participants, a
NetAmps Opaganib price 200 amplifier was used and the selleck compound library electrical signal was amplified with a .1- to 100-Hz band pass filter. For the remaining infants, a NetAmps 300 amplifier was used with no band pass filter (an analysis using amplifier type as a between-subjects factor is described in the ERP results section). All data were digitized at a 500 Hz sampling rate and stored on a computer disk for further processing and analysis. E-Prime software was used for stimulus presentation, and NetStation software was used for EEG data acquisition and postprocessing. The eye-tracking and ERP tasks took place over a 2-day
period for each infant. On Day 1, infants completed the initial portions of the eye-tracking task. Participants were seated in a chair in front of a Tobii T60 monitor in an electrically and sound-shielded testing room with dim lighting. The chair was positioned such that each participant’s eyes were approximately 60 cm from the monitor. Before beginning the eye-tracking experiment, participants completed a calibration procedure to ensure the eye-tracker was adequately tracking gaze. In this calibration Thymidylate synthase procedure, a red dot appeared at 5 locations: Each of the four corners of the monitor and the center of the screen. Following calibration, the Tobii Studio program reported whether the eye-tracker successfully picked up gaze at the five locations. If calibration was successful, the experimental procedure was begun. If calibration was unsuccessful, the monitor and chair were adjusted and the calibration procedure was rerun until it successfully picked up on all five locations of gaze. Following calibration, infants began the Day 1 portion of the visual paired comparison task (VPC). During all phases of the VPC, faces were presented side by side, each measuring 14 × 14.5 cm on the screen and separated by a distance of 3.5 cm. With infants positioned at 60 cm from the screen, this resulted in each face subtending a visual angle of 13 degrees.