The UCLA Baby Lab

A few weeks after Seneca was born, we received a letter in the mail from the UCLA Baby Lab. The lab obtained her birth record from the state of California (and she was born in the Santa Monica UCLA hospital) as they were recruiting local newborns to participate in their upcoming research studies. We thought it would be interesting to have Seneca be a part of the developmental studies and since we only live about 2 miles from the UCLA campus, it is very convenient. We filled out the information card and sent it in to the lab.

It wasn't long before we got a call from the Lab asking if Seneca would participate in their current study relating to visual cognition. They would conduct the research using a computer monitor and a computerized camera "eye tracking" device to study what Seneca would track and focus on during a short program of images.

Mommy, Daddy, Nene Ahrens and Seneca were all met at the entrance to the UCLA campus by a representative of the lab. She took us to Franz Hall and into the Psychology Dept. where the Baby Lab is located. We filled out some paperwork and then headed into the research lab. Mommy held Seneca on her lap and the research assistant set up the camera with the eye tracking device. Then, they turned out the lights and started the program. In all, it was 10 minutes of various images flashing onto the screen. The most common was a blue rectangle with some colored angled bars that moved behind it as well as a grid of white dots. In between showing this, there would be short breaks of other images such as bouncing toys or animals.

After awhile, I noticed that Seneca would get a little fussy every time the blue rectangle with the white dot grid came up. After the program was over, I noted this to the research assistant and she said "yes" with a smile. Apparently, this is very common with the babies. They get bored looking at the same image. Then, the assistant played back the tape, but this time, it showed a small red dot that represented Seneca's "eyes" and what they had tracked and focused on. For the most part, she was tracking all over the place, but there were definite times when she focused and, predictably, these were for the shorter images of the toys and animals. However, toward the end, she focused more frequently even on the blue rectangle image. We asked about this and to our amazement, we realized that the blue rectangle image was slightly changing in the last frames of the program. Part of the research study is to confirm that the babies can recognize these changes after an image becomes very familiar. (and she obviously confirmed)

Neither Chandler, his mom or I noticed these slight changes to the image when we watched it the first time. The research assistant said that this is consistent with most adults. She explained that babies are sponges for information and can distinguish very small changes in everything. Although adults are capable of distinguishing these differences, we tend to gloss over small details like this and dismiss them quickly. A great example of this is the fact that we can read mispelled words or even sentences with words missing and not even notice.

Seneca got her picture taken for the Baby Lab wall of fame and she received an official "UCLA Baby Lab" bib for her participation. We may be contacted in the future for additional studies.

p.s. we didn't take any photos inside the research lab