title: Walking direction triggers visuo-spatial orienting in 6-month-old infants and adults: An eye tracking study.
abstract: The present study investigates whether the walking direction of a biological motion point-light display can trigger visuo-spatial attention in 6-month-old infants. A cueing paradigm and the recording of eye movements in a free viewing condition were employed. A control group of adults took part in the experiment. Participants were presented with a central point-light display depicting a walking human, followed by a single peripheral target. In experiment 1, the central biological motion stimulus depicting a walking human could be upright or upside-down and was facing either left or right. Results revealed that the latency of saccades toward the peripheral target was modulated by the congruency between the facing direction of the cue and the position of the target. In infants, as well as in adults, saccade latencies were shorter when the target appeared in the position signalled by the facing direction of the point-light walker (congruent trials) than when the target appeared in the contralateral position (incongruent trials). This cueing effect was present only when the biological motion cue was presented in the upright condition and not when the display was inverted. In experiment 2, a rolling point-light circle with unambiguous direction was adopted. Here, adults were influenced by the direction of the central cue. However no effect of congruency was found in infants. This result suggests that biological motion has a priority as a cue for spatial attention during development.
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Belgium; Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Italy. Electronic address: lara.bardi@ugent.be.
authors.forename: Lara
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bardi
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padova, Italy; CIMeC, University of Trento, Italy.
authors.forename: Elisa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Di Giorgio
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padova, Italy.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lunghi
authors.affiliation: Queen's University, Canada.
authors.forename: Nikolaus F
authors.initials: NF
authors.lastname: Troje
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padova, Italy; Center of Cognitive Neuroscience of Padova, Italy.
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Simion
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D053483:Eye Movement Measurements; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D009039:Motion Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D000072458:Orientation, Spatial / Q000502:physiology*; D012938:Social Perception; D016138:Walking; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Biological motion; Social stimuli; Visuo-spatial orienting