title: When do infants begin to follow a point?
abstract: Infants' understanding of a pointing gesture represents a major milestone in their communicative development. The current consensus is that infants are not capable of following a pointing gesture until 9-12 months of age. In this article, we present evidence from 4- and 6-month-old infants challenging this conclusion. Infants were tested with a spatial cueing paradigm in Experiment 1 (500-ms stimulus-target onset asynchrony [SOA]) and Experiment 2 (100-ms SOA). The results revealed that the younger infants shifted their attention in the cued direction when presented with a pointing gesture and with a foil (i.e., same size and shape as pointing gesture) at both SOAs. Older infants shifted their attention only in response to the pointing gesture at 100-ms SOA. Experiment 3 tested infants' preferences for the social stimulus (i.e., pointing gesture) relative to the foil and a non-social stimulus (i.e., an arrow). The results revealed that infants are biased to selectively attend to the pointing gesture. Taken together, these results suggest that 4- and 6-month-old infants are capable of preferentially selecting and following a pointing gesture. It is theorized that this early capacity assists infants in their developing understanding of triadic forms of communication.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University.
authors.forename: Bennett I
authors.initials: BI
authors.lastname: Bertenthal
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Georgia Southern University.
authors.forename: Ty W
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Boyer
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University.
authors.forename: Samuel
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Harding
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D002657:Child Development; D003463:Cues; D053483:Eye Movement Measurements; D005260:Female; D005868:Gestures; D006225:Hand; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011930:Reaction Time; D012438:Saccades; D012919:Social Behavior