title: Multiple Measures of Fixation on Social Content in Infancy: Evidence for a Single Social Cognitive Construct?
abstract: The preference of infants to fixate on social information in a stimulus is well known. We examine how this preference manifests across a series of free-viewing tasks using different stimulus types. Participants were thirty typically developing infants. We measured eye movements when viewing isolated faces, faces alongside objects in a grid, and faces naturally presented in photographed scenes. In each task, infants fixated social content for longer than nonsocial content. Social preference scores representing distribution of fixation to social versus general image content were highly correlated and thus combined into a single composite measure, which was independent of demographic and behavioral measures. We infer that multiple eye-tracking tasks can be used to generate a composite measure of social preference in infancy. This approach may prove useful in the early characterization of developmental disabilities.
authors.affiliation: University of the West of Scotland.
authors.forename: Karri
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Gillespie-Smith
authors.affiliation: MRC Centre for Reproductive Health & Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences Queen's Medical Research Institute University of Edinburgh.
authors.forename: James P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Boardman
authors.affiliation: Department of Child Life and Health University of Edinburgh.
authors.forename: Ian C
authors.initials: IC
authors.lastname: Murray
authors.affiliation: MRC Centre for Reproductive Health Queen's Medical Research Institute University of Edinburgh.
authors.forename: Jane E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Norman
authors.affiliation: The Salvesen Mindroom Centre University of Edinburgh.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: O'Hare
authors.affiliation: Patrick Wild Centre University of Edinburgh.
authors.forename: Sue
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-2688-1734
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fletcher-Watson
keywords: eye‐tracking; social cognition; visual attention