title: Developmental tuning of reflexive attentional effect to biological motion cues.
abstract: The human visual system is extremely sensitive to the direction information retrieved from biological motion. In the current study, we investigate the functional impact of this sensitivity on attentional orienting in young children. We found that children as early as 4 years old, like adults, showed a robust reflexive attentional orienting effect to the walking direction of an upright point-light walker, indicating that biological motion signals can automatically direct spatial attention at an early age. More importantly, the inversion effect associated with attentional orienting emerges by 4 years old and gradually develops into a similar pattern found in adults. These results provide strong evidence that biological motion cues can guide the distribution of spatial attention in young children, and highlight a critical development from a broadly- to finely-tuned process of utilizing biological motion cues in the human social brain.
authors.affiliation: 1] Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China [2] Center for Cognition and Brain Disorders, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China, 310000 [3] Zhejiang Key Laboratory for Research in Assessment of Cognitive Impairments, Hangzhou, China, 310000 [4].
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: 1] State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China [2].
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: 1] Center for Cognition and Brain Disorders, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China, 310000 [2] Zhejiang Key Laboratory for Research in Assessment of Cognitive Impairments, Hangzhou, China, 310000.
authors.forename: Xuchu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Weng
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Su
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jiang
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time; D065855:Spatial Processing; D014796:Visual Perception; D016138:Walking; D055815:Young Adult