The visual world holds valuable communicative information for the language learning infant. Emerging evidence suggests that the way an infant distributes his or her attention to the social world predicts later language development. Two lines of research have dominated investigations of connections between visual attention in infancy and language onset: gaze following and face scanning. This longitudinal study provides the first empirical investigation of these behaviors in the same group of infants. Infants visited the lab at 6, 9 and 12 months to participate in an eye tracking study. The stimuli showed a woman speaking about one of two objects in front of her. Trials were counterbalanced for presence or absence of information in the mouth (speaking vs. smiling) and the eyes (gaze shifted towards an object about which she is speaking or gaze directed at the camera). Language outcome measures were then collected at 18 and 24 months. Significant correlations were identified between gaze following and face scanning behaviors at 12 months. These behaviors at 12 months were also predictive of productive language measures at 18 and 24 months. This dissertation contrasts three possible accounts for the connections between attentional distribution in infancy and language development: the social engagement account (which suggests that infants who are socially engaged will scan the scene for the most relevant information at a given time and will also be more interested in language), the information account (which suggests that information available in the objects being discussed and in the mouth of a speaker will be critical for language development) and the executive function account (which suggests that infants who have the executive control necessary to disengage from the face to look towards an object will have superior language skills). This study provides evidence for both the social engagement and information accounts. These results are discussed in the context of a latent social engagement factor which may account for both attentional distribution and language onset.
Tenenbaum, Elena Jean,
"Gaze Following and Attention to Faces in Infancy Predict Language Development"
(2011).
Psychology Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.7301/Z0FB516J
