When it pays off to take a look: Infants learn to follow an object’s motion with their gaze—Especially if it features eyes
- Autor(en)
- Christine Michel, Sabine Pauen, Stefanie Höhl
- Abstrakt
Social cues and instrumental learning are two aspects potentially fostering early gaze following. We systematically investigated the influence of social features (schematic eyes vs. reverse-contrast eyes) and gaze-contingent reinforcement (elicited vs. not elicited) on 4-month-olds' learning to attend to gaze-cued objects. In 4 experiments, we tested infants' (N = 74) gaze following of a turning block with schematic or reverse-contrast eyes. In Experiments 1 and 2, infants could elicit an attractive animation in a training phase via interactive eye tracking by following the turning of the block. Experiments 3 and 4 were yoked controls without contingent reinforcement. Infants did not spontaneously follow the motion of the block. Four-month-olds always followed the block after training when it featured schematic eyes. When the block featured reverse-contrast eyes, the training phase only affected infants' looking behavior without reinforcement. While speaking to a certain degree of plasticity, findings stress the importance of eyes for guiding infants' attention.
- Organisation(en)
- Institut für Psychologie der Entwicklung und Bildung
- Externe Organisation(en)
- Universität Heidelberg, Max-Planck-Institut für Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaften
- Journal
- Infancy
- Band
- 27
- Seiten
- 515-532
- Anzahl der Seiten
- 18
- ISSN
- 1525-0008
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1111/infa.12464
- Publikationsdatum
- 03-2022
- Peer-reviewed
- Ja
- ÖFOS 2012
- 501005 Entwicklungspsychologie
- Schlagwörter
- ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
- Developmental and Educational Psychology, Pediatrics, Perinatology, and Child Health
- Link zum Portal
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/7c5c12a0-f0c7-4335-a981-239ead2bf4ef