Rechele Brooks

The importance of eyes: How infants interpret adult looking behavior.

Two studies assessed the gaze following of 12-, 14-, and 18-month-old infants. The experimental manipulation was whether an adult could see the targets. In Experiment 1, the adult turned to targets with either open or closed eyes. Infants at all ages looked at the adults target more in the open- versus closed-eyes condition. In Experiment 2, an inanimate occluder, a blindfold, was compared with a headband control. Infants 14- and 18-months-old looked more at the adults target in the headband condition. Infants were not simply responding to adult head turning, which was controlled, but were sensitive to the status of the adults eyes. In the 2nd year, infants interpreted adult looking as object-directed--an act connecting the gazer and the object.

Infant gaze following and pointing predict accelerated vocabulary growth through two years of age: a longitudinal, growth curve modeling study *

We found that infant gaze following and pointing predicts subsequent language development. At ages 0;10 or 0;11, infants saw an adult turn to look at an object in an experimental setting. Productive vocabulary was assessed longitudinally through two years of age. Growth curve modeling showed that infants who gaze followed and looked longer at the target object had significantly faster vocabulary growth than infants with shorter looks, even with maternal education controlled; adding infant pointing strengthened the model. We highlight the role of social cognition in word learning and emphasize the communicative-referential functions of early gaze following and pointing.

Infant Understanding of the Referential Nature of Looking

To determine whether infants follow the gaze of adults because they understand the referential nature of looking or because they use the adult turn as a predictive cue for the location of interesting events, the gaze-following behavior of 14- and 18-month-olds was examined in the joint visual attention paradigm under varying visual obstruction conditions: (a) when the experimenters line of sight was obstructed by opaque screens (screen condition), (b) when the experimenters view was not obstructed (no-screen condition), and (c) when the opaque screens contained a large transparent window (window condition). It was assumed that infants who simply use adult turns as predictive cues would turn equally in all 3 conditions but infants who comprehend the referential nature of looking would turn maximally when the experimenters vision was not blocked and minimally when her vision was blocked. Eighteen-month-olds responded in accord with the referential position (turning much more in the no-screen and window conditions than in the screen condition). However, 14-month-olds yielded a mixed response pattern (turning less in the screen than the no-screen condition but turning still less in the window condition). The results suggest that, unlike 18-month-olds, 14-month-olds do not understand the intentional nature of looking and are unclear about the requirements for successful looking.

''Social'' robots are psychological agents for infants: A test of gaze following

Gaze following is a key component of human social cognition. Gaze following directs attention to areas of high information value and accelerates social, causal, and cultural learning. An issue for both robotic and infant learning is whose gaze to follow. The hypothesis tested in this study is that infants use information derived from an entitys interactions with other agents as evidence about whether that entity is a perceiver. A robot was programmed so that it could engage in communicative, imitative exchanges with an adult experimenter. Infants who saw the robot act in this social-communicative fashion were more likely to follow its line of regard than those without such experience. Infants use prior experience with the robots interactions as evidence that the robot is a psychological agent that can see. Infants want to look at what the robot is seeing, and thus shift their visual attention to the external target.

Gaze following at 12 and 14 months: Do the eyes matter?

Two questions were addressed: (1) Is the gaze following of infants under 18 months sensitive to eye status? (2) Do they construe looking as referential behaviour? Corkum and Moore (1995) concluded that, prior to 18 months, gaze following is responsive to the head turn alone (H), because infants followed such turns as frequently as conjoint head and eye turns (H/E). Since their results may have been compromised by an absence of targets and a relatively lengthy response time, we retested a 12- and 14- month group with H/E, H and eyes closed (H/Ecl) cues in the presence of targets and with reduced response time. To examine comprehension of referentiality, two more H/E cues were shown—(1) saying ‘oh wow’ while turning and (2) actively scanning the targets—each intended to increase gaze following if infants regard looking as seeing something. Fourteen-month-olds, but not 12-month-olds, responded significantly more to the standard H/E cue than to the H and H/Ecl cues, indicating the importance of eyes for gaze following at this age. Neither age group, however, responded more to the two ‘enhanced’ H/E cues than to the standard. In a second experiment, a new 14-month group was tested without targets, and again, responding was significantly greater to H/E than to H and H/Ecl. It was concluded that by 14 months, the eyes are co-equal with the head in controlling gaze following, but whether such head/eye turns are understood as object-directed is problematic.

Infant Sensitivity to Deviations in Dynamic Facial--Vocal Displays: The Role of Eye Regard.

Do young infants appreciate the intentionality of adult interactors? In view of recent speculation that infants are innately sensitive to eye direction and that communicative intent is conveyed in part by attentional cues, the reactions of 3- and 5-month infants were compared to video episodes of normally responsive women who either appeared or did not appear to make eye contact. Across three experiments, lack of eye contact was achieved by either averting the eyes (E), averting the head and eyes (H&E), closing the eyes (ECL), or averting the head alone (H). Three-month-olds smiled less at H&E, H, and ECL, but not at E, relative to frontal faces, indicating sensitivity to head but not to eye orientation. By contrast, 5-month-olds smiled less at H&E, E, and ECL, but not at H, indicating sensitivity to both head and eye orientation. The implications of the data for mentalist views of infant social behavior are discussed.

Social Interaction in Infants’ Learning of Second-Language Phonetics: An Exploration of Brain–Behavior Relations

Infants learn phonetic information from a second language with live-person presentations, but not television or audio-only recordings. To understand the role of social interaction in learning a second language, we examined infants’ joint attention with live, Spanish-speaking tutors and used a neural measure of phonetic learning. Infants’ eye-gaze behaviors during Spanish sessions at 9.5–10.5 months of age predicted second-language phonetic learning, assessed by an event-related potential measure of Spanish phoneme discrimination at 11 months. These data suggest a powerful role for social interaction at the earliest stages of learning a new language.

Social robots are psychological agents for infants

Gaze following is a key component of human social cognition. Gaze following directs attention to areas of high information value and accelerates social, causal, and cultural learning. An issue for both robotic and infant learning is whose gaze to follow. The hypothesis tested in this study is that infants use information derived from an entitys interactions with other agents as evidence about whether that entity is a perceiver. A robot was programmed so that it could engage in communicative, imitative exchanges with an adult experimenter. Infants who saw the robot act in this social-communicative fashion were more likely to follow its line of regard than those without such experience. Infants use prior experience with the robots interactions as evidence that the robot is a psychological agent that can see. Infants want to look at what the robot is seeing, and thus shift their visual attention to the external target.

2010 Special Issue: Social robots are psychological agents for infants: A test of gaze following

Gaze following is a key component of human social cognition. Gaze following directs attention to areas of high information value and accelerates social, causal, and cultural learning. An issue for both robotic and infant learning is whose gaze to follow. The hypothesis tested in this study is that infants use information derived from an entitys interactions with other agents as evidence about whether that entity is a perceiver. A robot was programmed so that it could engage in communicative, imitative exchanges with an adult experimenter. Infants who saw the robot act in this social-communicative fashion were more likely to follow its line of regard than those without such experience. Infants use prior experience with the robots interactions as evidence that the robot is a psychological agent that can see. Infants want to look at what the robot is seeing, and thus shift their visual attention to the external target.