Development of infants' attention to faces during the first year.
In simple tests of preference, infants as young as newborns prefer faces and face-like stimuli over distractors. Little is known, however, about the development of attention to faces in complex scenes. We recorded eye-movements of 3-, 6-, and 9-month-old infants and adults during free-viewing of clips from A Charlie Brown Christmas (an animated film). The tendency to look at faces increased with age. Using novel computational tools, we found that 3-month-olds were less consistent (across individuals) in where they looked than were older infants. Moreover, younger infants' fixations were best predicted by low-level image salience, rather than the locations of faces. Between 3 and 9 months of age, infants gradually focused their attention on faces. We discuss several possible interpretations of this shift in terms of social development, cross-modal integration, and attentional/executive control.
Frank
Michael C
MC
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Room 46-3037D, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. mcfrank@mit.edu
Vul
Edward
E
Johnson
Scott P
SP
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation