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Adult's Eyes Trigger Shifts of Visual Attention in Human Infants

Adult's Eyes Trigger Shifts of Visual Attention in Human Infants Two experiments examined whether infants shift their visual attention in the direction toward which an adult's eyes turn. A computerized modification of previous joint-attention paradigms revealed that infants as young as 3 months attend in the same direction as the eyes of a digitized adult face. This attention shift was indicated by the latency and direction of their orienting to peripheral probes presented after the face was extinguished. A second experiment found a similar influence of direction of perceived gaze, but also that less peripheral orienting occurred if the central face remained visible during presentation of the probe. This may explain why attention shifts triggered by gaze perception have been difficult to observe in infants using previous naturalistic procedures. Our new method reveals both that direction of perceived gaze can be discriminated by young infants and that this perception triggers corresponding shifts of their own attention. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Psychological Science SAGE

Adult's Eyes Trigger Shifts of Visual Attention in Human Infants

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References (23)

Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
© 1998 Association for Psychological Science
ISSN
0956-7976
eISSN
1467-9280
DOI
10.1111/1467-9280.00024
Publisher site
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Abstract

Two experiments examined whether infants shift their visual attention in the direction toward which an adult's eyes turn. A computerized modification of previous joint-attention paradigms revealed that infants as young as 3 months attend in the same direction as the eyes of a digitized adult face. This attention shift was indicated by the latency and direction of their orienting to peripheral probes presented after the face was extinguished. A second experiment found a similar influence of direction of perceived gaze, but also that less peripheral orienting occurred if the central face remained visible during presentation of the probe. This may explain why attention shifts triggered by gaze perception have been difficult to observe in infants using previous naturalistic procedures. Our new method reveals both that direction of perceived gaze can be discriminated by young infants and that this perception triggers corresponding shifts of their own attention.

Journal

Psychological Science – SAGE

Published: Mar 1, 1998

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