Eye Tracking

The UCLA Baby Lab did an eye tracking experiment on Phoebe. She was shown side-by-side faces, one talking as if to an infant, and the other talking to an adult. Meanwhile there was audio of someone talking to an infant, or of someone talking to an adult, or sometimes silence. (However, the audio was never lip-synched to either face.) The hypothesis was that Phoebe would look at the infant-directed face when there was audio of infant-directed speech. Another hypothesis was that she would tend to look at lips when the faces were speaking, and at eyes the rest of the time.



The eye-tracking camera is under the monitor.



The red dot indicates where Phoebe's eyes were focused.

Tomato

Phoebe experimentally stuffs a garden tomato in her mouth... and surprises herself by actually biting into it.

Contemplative

Garden Plums

Back to Santa Monica and a crop of plums. Got several buckets of plums although a greater number were eaten by squirrels.





Phoebe is fond of these balls which came from Arthur.

Cities Where Phoebe Has Been III

Beverly Hills CA (Al Gelato)

Henley-on-Thames UK (Nick, Patrycja, Zosia)
London UK (City of Westminster)
Edinburgh UK (Blackford Hill)
Peebles UK (Cardrona)
Tain UK (Glenmorangie distillery)
Stromness UK (Pier House)
Kirkwall UK (St. Magnus's Cathedral)
Stenness UK (Magnus, Vicky, Milly, Robbie)
St. Margaret's Hope UK (catamaran)
John O'Groats UK (puffins)

John O'Groats

Took the catamaran Pentalina out of St. Margaret's Hope. Stopped for a scone at John O' Groats before driving back south to Edinburgh.




Seong bought a pair of puffin plush toys that issued genuine puffin calls... Not unlike noises that Phoebe makes sometimes.

Pier House

Pier House

Eating an orange. Sort of.

Langskaill

Afternoon:

Just after midnight:

Brough of Birsay

Dabbled in the North Sea at the Brough of Birsay.

Skara Brae

Visited Europe's best preserved 5000-year-old Neolithic village.

The new visitor center (which wasn't there 16 years ago) has a poem by George Mackay Brown on the wall of the cafe.

Stromness

Dinner at the Royal Hotel.

Kirkwall

We went to St. Magnus's Cathedral in Kirkwall. Had some Orkney ice cream. Granny gave Phoebe and Theo some windmill toys so they could learn the principles of aerodynamics.

The Journey North

As we drove north from Edinburgh to Scrabster, this Rolls-Royce seemed to be following us.

We stopped at the Glenmorangie distillery.

We took the Hamnavoe ferry from Scrabster to Stromness.



We saw the Old Man of Hoy.



The Hamnavoe is faster and more luxurious than the old St. Ola. It even had tables of toys for Phoebe to play with.

Auntie Ros and Uncle Paul

Drove to Cardrona to see Auntie Ros and Uncle Paul (here seen on the wall).

Hanging with Theo

Took the train to Edinburgh and met up with cousin Theo again.

Hanging with Zosia

London

Our trip to London was not very well planned. We got a late start. We forgot the street atlas that Nicholas and Patrycja had given us, and had to buy a new one. Then we found that the camera battery was almost entirely dead, so the only pictures we managed to take were of Phoebe reading the atlas in the Italian Gardens at the north of Kensington Gardens.


However, we had time to do a pretty thorough exploration of Kensington Gardens (reminiscent of the Infocom game Trinity), and a complete circuit of Buckingham Palace Garden.