Introducing BITTSy: The Behavioral Infant &amp; Toddler Testing System

Newman, Rochelle S.; Shroads, Emily; Johnson, Elizabeth; Kamdar, J.; Morini, Giovanna; Onishi, Kristine H.; Smith, Elizabeth G.; Tincoff, Ruth

doi:10.3758/s13428-021-01583-9

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…A Windows computer was used behind the front wall of the booth for running the study and coding the dog’s behavior. The experimenter used BITTSy, an experimental program designed for Headturn Preference and other infant looking-based studies, to run the experiment and code the trials (Newman et al 2021 ).…”

Section: Experiments 1: Name Recognition With Both Vocoded and Natura...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Perception of vocoded speech in domestic dogs

Mallikarjun,

Shroads,

Newman

2024

Anim Cogn

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Humans have an impressive ability to comprehend signal-degraded speech; however, the extent to which comprehension of degraded speech relies on human-specific features of speech perception vs. more general cognitive processes is unknown. Since dogs live alongside humans and regularly hear speech, they can be used as a model to differentiate between these possibilities. One often-studied type of degraded speech is noise-vocoded speech (sometimes thought of as cochlear-implant-simulation speech). Noise-vocoded speech is made by dividing the speech signal into frequency bands (channels), identifying the amplitude envelope of each individual band, and then using these envelopes to modulate bands of noise centered over the same frequency regions – the result is a signal with preserved temporal cues, but vastly reduced frequency information. Here, we tested dogs’ recognition of familiar words produced in 16-channel vocoded speech. In the first study, dogs heard their names and unfamiliar dogs’ names (foils) in vocoded speech as well as natural speech. In the second study, dogs heard 16-channel vocoded speech only. Dogs listened longer to their vocoded name than vocoded foils in both experiments, showing that they can comprehend a 16-channel vocoded version of their name without prior exposure to vocoded speech, and without immediate exposure to the natural-speech version of their name. Dogs’ name recognition in the second study was mediated by the number of phonemes in the dogs’ name, suggesting that phonological context plays a role in degraded speech comprehension.

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Section: Experiments 1: Name Recognition With Both Vocoded and Natura...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Perception of vocoded speech in domestic dogs

Mallikarjun,

Shroads,

Newman

2024

Anim Cogn

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Visual stimuli appeared 0.4 s prior to the auditory stimulus, and the trials played uninterrupted from beginning to end. The Behavioral Infant and Toddler Testing System (BITTSy) (Newman et al, 2021) was used to control the stimulus presentation, and a video camera inside the testing booth was used to record videos of participants completing the task for later coding.…”

Section: In-personmentioning

confidence: 99%

Webcams, Songs, and Vocabulary Learning: A Comparison of In-Person and Remote Data Collection as a Way of Moving Forward With Child-Language Research

Morini

Blair

2021

Front. Psychol.

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This article evaluates a testing procedure for collecting eye-gaze data with toddlers and preschoolers during a word-learning task. We provide feasibility and precision data by comparing performance in an in-person version of the study (conducted under controlled conditions in the lab), with performance in a virtual version in which participants completed the testing procedure from home. Our data support the feasibility of collecting remote eye-gaze data with young children, and present it as a viable alternative for conducting developmental language research when in-person interactions with participants cannot take place. Additionally, we use this methodological approach to examine a topic that has gained popularity in recent years—the role of music and songs on vocabulary learning. We provide evidence suggesting that while songs may help increase attention during a particular task, greater attention does not lead to greater learning. In fact, preschoolers show improved word-learning performance for items that were trained in a spoken sentence compared to items that were trained in a song. This means that while songs may be beneficial for increasing child engagement, spoken sentences may be best for supporting deep level learning of language concepts.

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