NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — Tulane University is looking for new parents and their babies to participate in a study on how babies’ brains develop.
Psychologists will study how babies and their caregivers interact with each other, and how a baby’s attention to a parent or caregiver changes during the first year of the baby’s life.
Funding for the study comes from a nearly $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.
The study requires three visits to Tulane when the babies are 4 months, 6 months, and 8 months old. Each visit will last between 60 and 90 minutes, and participants will receive $30 for each visit.
The visits will take place at the Tulane Learning and Brain Development Lab, at 200 Broadway St. in uptown New Orleans.
During the visits, babies and their caregivers will do several activities.
Caregivers will complete a series of questionnaires about their family demographics and typical behavior.
The babies will view a couple of “short movies in which shapes, objects, or faces appear on the screen.” The psychologists will use “a non-invasive eye tracker to record where [the] child looks as they view the display.”
The babies will play with “standard infant toys” and the psychologists record where the babies are looking while they play.
Also, babies and caregivers will play together while the psychologists use “a non-invasive EKG device” to measure the baby’s heart rate.
“When families bring their happy, healthy infants to participate in our studies they are contributing to research that will ultimately be aimed at understanding diverse developmental pathways,” said lead investigator Julie Markant, Associate Professor of Psychology in Tulane’s School of Science and Engineering.
“Our goal is to understand how this early learning typically occurs,” said Markant, “so that we can identify factors that may lead to atypical outcomes as early as possible.”
To find more information about the Tulane University study and how to sign up, visit the Tulane University Learning and Brain Development Lab website.
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