An R interface to peekbank

The peekbankr package allows you to access data in Peekbank, an open database of developmental eye-tracking data, from R. Data are retrieved from the versioned peekbank dataset on Redivis; the get_ functions return tidy tables without you having to write queries. The package vignette provides examples of the data loading functions and what the resulting data look like.

Installation

peekbankr uses the redivis client (not on CRAN) to access the data:

install.packages("redivis", repos = "https://langcog.r-universe.dev", type = "source")
# install.packages("remotes")
remotes::install_github("peekbank/peekbankr")

The first data request will open a browser window to authorize Redivis access (free account). For non-interactive use, set a REDIVIS_API_TOKEN environment variable instead.

Usage

Here’s a simple workflow for using peekbankr to get data from a single study.

library(tidyverse)
library(peekbankr)

con <- connect_to_peekbank()   # pins the current database version

aoi_timepoints <- get_aoi_timepoints(connection = con, dataset_name = "pomper_saffran_2016")
administrations <- get_administrations(connection = con, dataset_name = "pomper_saffran_2016")

ps_data <- aoi_timepoints %>%
  left_join(administrations)

Database versions

Peekbank is released in named versions (e.g. 2026.1). By default connect_to_peekbank() uses the latest release and prints which one that is; pass db_version = "2025.1" (or a Redivis version tag like "v1.2") to pin an earlier release for reproducibility. get_db_info() lists the available versions.

Data files

Raw data, processed intermediates, and per-dataset READMEs live in the companion peekbank_files dataset:

get_readmes(datasets = "pomper_saffran_2016")          # dataset documentation
stimuli <- download_stimuli(con, datasets = "reflook_v4")  # stimulus images

Development

After making changes, run roxygen2::roxygenise() to update exports and documentation, and testthat::test_local() for the offline test suite. Two gated suites need environment variables: PEEKBANK_NETWORK_TESTS=true (live Redivis reads) and PEEKBANK_FIXTURES_DIR=<path> (characterization against the MySQL-era fixtures; see peekbank-datapage migration/capture_fixtures.R).