Synchronous EEG and Motion Capturing - Potentials for (Deferred) Imitation and Eye-Tracking Studies
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
Against the background of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, the present scholarship consisted of training in synchronous EEG (S-EEG) and Motion Capturing (MoCap) from a state of the art perspective together with both the Developmental Psychology Lab and the Swartz Center for Computational Neuroscience (SCCN). The training consisted of (1) setting up hardware and software of the S-EEG and MoCap systems, (2) preparing and cleaning (e.g. removing movement artefacts) S-EEG/MoCap data, and (3) analyzing S-EEG data with EEG-Lab using independent component analysis (ICA). During my collaboration with both the CD and SCCN, I got much more realistic on how time- and human resources-consuming a combined S-EEG/MoCap is and how groundbreaking and still somehow exploratory the imitation studies of the CD lab are. Furthermore, I learned how crucially important a well-running scientific network of experimental psychologists, neuroscientists, computer scientists and engineers is for conducting groundbreaking S-EEG studies. In line with this realism about S-EEG/MoCap studies, I continuously realized that the planned deferred imitation study with 36-month-olds was not realizable in the given time frame. Hence, I re-conceptualized my research plans about EEG studies using deferred imitation as a paradigm. Next to S-EEG/MoCap training and collaboration, I collaborated with the CD in analyzing data of the longitudinal study “Modeling the Emergence of Shared Attention (MESA)”. Thereby I prepared and analyzed a longitudinal data set of face vs. toy habituation (5,7, 9 month-olds) and a face pose discrimination task. We are currently working on combining habituation (HAB) and face pose (FP) discrimination with joint attention data with the idea in mind that joint attention will be predicted by earlier HAB and FP performance. Given my training and heightened realism about using S-EEG/MoCap, I re-conceptualized my future research on (deferred) imitation, gaze contingent eye-tracking and face processing studies in (older) adults accordingly.
