Professor Rader's students presented the following posters describing the research conducted by their research team as part of the interdisciplinary, NSF-funded project, examining the effect of locomotor experience on young infants’ development of executive functioning:
Learning to think by learning to move: Enhancing infant attention through locomotion by Breanna Kmiecik, Rachael Holcomb, Nancy Rader, Judith Pena-Shaff, Carole Dennis, Sharon Stansfield, and Helénè Larin
Researchers report look-duration towards a hand puppet in infancy predicts better executive functioning at 2-4 years of age. Five-month-old infants were randomly assigned to a locomotor or non-locomotor condition. The locomotor group navigated using a robotic-assisted device. At 7 months we assessed executive function, measured by attention to a puppet via gaze tracking.
The non-locomotor group showed less efficient attention, indicated by gaze count/time and pupil diameter. Results suggest self-guided locomotor experience enhances cognitive functioning.
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20160318101442100