The Sussex Baby Lab conducts research on how babies see, think and learn. We are particularly interested in understanding aspects of babies’ visual development such as how they see and respond to colour, scenes and complex images. We are also focused on understanding how babies respond to natural environments. We work closely with industry partners, the arts, charities and educators to ensure that our findings have a positive impact on babies’ lives.
Current Projects:
- Nature Babies
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We’re interested in the positive effects that nature might have on infants. In the past there has been lots of research on the benefits that nature has on adults- for example restoring their attention or reducing stress. However, these effects have not been tested on babies yet. In order to investigate this unexplored area we will be showing babies videos of nature and urban environments, or pictures of patterns found in nature, and seeing how this effects their attention and stress by capturing their eye movements or their heart rate. Babies must be 5-10 months to take part.
- COLOURMIND
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COLOURMIND is a 5 year project which aims to understand how human colour perception is related to how we perceive our colourful environment. The natural world has lots of visual characteristics and patterns - for example, the way the tree branches or how snowflakes are shaped (often called 'fractal patterns'), and there is a blue and yellow bias in what we see in nature, as it is lit up by either yellow sunlight or blue skylight. As adults, we seem to be tuned in to these patterns. For example, adults will prefer to look at images which match the patterns found in natural scenes, and our ability to tell colours apart is aligned to the blue-yellow pattern found in many natural scenes. This project aims to help us understand if the way that babies and children see and understand the world is also aligned with natural scenes, or if it's something we learn from seeing the environment around us as we grow up.
- Etta Loves Collaboration
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The Sussex Baby Lab has formed a collaboration with Etta Loves, a science-led baby product company. Together, we want to understand how babies perceive patterns and how preference for particular patterns develop. We know that the infant visual system is receptive and responsive to patterns; even newborns can see and distinguish them. We also know that pattern vision is of crucial importance in visual development because patterns are an important source of information about the environment; indeed, babies require patterned input for proper cognitive development. Now, using eye-tracking, brain imaging, and image analysis, we are conducting experiments to investigate how visual perception is adapted to the statistical qualities of the environment during development, and the role that this plays in the development of infant aesthetics. We will apply our scientific findings to optimise pattern and image design for Etta Loves, to ultimately help support the visual development of babies.
Past Projects:
- CATEGORIES
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CATEGORIES was a large European Research Funded project which investigated the orign of colour categories, and their impact on how we see colour in infants, toddlers, and adults. Although colour is a continuum, we break it up into discrete categories (e.g. 'red' 'green'), and there had been much debate around how these categories are formed, and how they might influence our colour perception. One of the studies we carried out showed that infants who don't yet know the words for colour can group colours together in a similar way to adults, and have at least five colour categories (red, yellow, green, blue, and purple). These colour categories seem to be shaped by the way the biology behind our colour vision works. We also ran an ERP study (a measure of electrical activity in the brain) to better understand how babies respond to 'unique hues' (a really pure example of that colour e.g. a blue which has no red or green in it), and a study on how toddlers learn the words for different colours.
To learn more, please read: Biological origins of color categorization
- EDUCATION
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This project looked at the effect of colour on children's cognitive performance. Some evidence suggests that colour affects adult performance on cognitive tasks. For example, the colour of the front cover of an IQ test can affect results (e.g., Elliot & Maier, 2007). However, can colour have similar effects on children's performance on cognitive tasks in a classroom setting?
The effect of colour on performance on the tasks was measured in 8-9 year old children. It was found that the colour red significantly decreased performance by around 6% on overal test performance relative to a grey baseline. These findings may suggest that colour has a subtle influence over performance on educational-related tasks.
To learn more, please read: The effect of colour on children's cognitive performance
