| dc.description | This work examines the development, in infants aged 6 through 19 months, of a specific type of attention called joint visual attention. In a series of four experiments, employing two different paradigms, three main issues are examined: age of emergence, cues employed, and origins of the response. Based on the pattern of findings conclusions are drawn regarding the nature of the infant's social understanding. With respect to age of emergence, the results indicate a somewhat later age of onset for joint visual attention than a number of previous investigators have concluded; 8-9 months as opposed to 6 months. With respect to the cues employed, the findings suggest that, with development, infants progress from relying exclusively on information about another's head orientation at about 8 months to a consideration of both head and eye orientation, to finally being able to align with changes in another's eye orientation alone sometime after 16 months. Finally, in terms of the origins of the joint visual attention response, while infants were able to learn to align with a model from about 8 months there seemed to be some constraints on the nature of the cues which could be associated with such a response. In particular, the head plus eyes cue was found to have inherent directional properties. Based on the collective findings of this work, it is concluded that: (1) early joint visual attention occurs in the absence of an understanding of directed visual attention in others, (2) nativist or empiricist roots can account for the development of joint visual attention, and (3) rather than requiring an understanding of other minds, it may be by way of engaging in joint visual attention that infants gain the experience they need ta help them acquire an understanding of other minds. | en_US |
