title: Spatial orienting following dynamic cues in infancy: grasping hands versus inanimate objects.
abstract: Movement perception facilitates spatial orienting of attention in infants (Farroni, Johnson, Brockbank, & Simion, 2000). In a series of 4 experiments, we investigated how orienting of attention in infancy is modulated by dynamic stimuli. Experiment 1 (N = 36) demonstrated that 5-month-olds as well as 7-month-olds orient to the direction of a dynamically grasping human hand. Experiment 2 (N = 36) showed that 7-month-olds orient covertly to direction of a geometrical shape moving on the trajectory of the grasping movement, but 5-month-olds do not. Experiment 3 (N = 18) showed that mere linear translating object movement does not elicit covert orienting of attention in 7-month-olds. In Experiment 4 (N = 18), we found that 7-month-olds process both grasping direction and movement direction, which resulted in increased reaction times when these cues conflicted. These findings suggest that orienting of attention reflects rapid detection of goal-directed agents. Five-month-olds need the information of both movement and grasping direction, whereas 7-month-olds can use each of these directional cues in isolation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Zurich.
authors.forename: Caroline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wronski
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Zurich.
authors.forename: Moritz M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Daum
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D002657:Child Development; D003463:Cues; D053483:Eye Movement Measurements; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006225:Hand; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception; D009949:Orientation; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011930:Reaction Time; D013028:Space Perception