Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

The goals of this proposal are to get a better grasp on how people understand language, and how they are able to acquire the concepts and categories that enable them to function in today's world. Focusing first on language, developing clear ideas or theories regarding how people understand the language that they read or hear is an important part of discovering how the mind and brain work. To understand how people process language requires getting a firm handle on what they are doing moment-to-moment. One of the best ways to do so is to track precisely where people's eyes are fixating as they read (that is, what words or letters they are looking at, and how long they look at them). Another way is to present objects or scenes that are relevant to the language that people are hearing, and then to monitor precisely what people are looking at as they listen to speech. Clever manipulations of scenes and language can uncover the degree to which people's understanding of speech lags behind the speech, or actually anticipates what might be spoken next. Furthermore, errors that people make, for example, looking at an object that is irrelevant to the spoken message, can reveal sources of language problems. Therefore, one goal of this NSERC equipment grant is to purchase an eyetracker that will allow us to monitor the fixations of normal children, adults, and children with dyslexia as they process language. The results of the experiments using this eyetracker will help in developing theories of language processing, as well as developing better therapies for those with language difficulties. In terms of concepts and categories, both vision and language are important aspects of people's ability to form categories such as "dogs" or "vehicles". Categories allow us to recognize things in our world, and to respond to them appropriately. Eyetracking can reveal moment-to-moment aspects of precisely what children and adults are doing when they are acquiring the knowledge necessary for categorization. Therefore, the second goal of this proposal grant is to use the eyetracker to obtain a more precise characterization of how people use both verbal and visual information while they acquire and use categories.