Abstract
SummaryEye gaze is a key channel of non-verbal communication in humans [1, 2, 3]. Eye contact with others is present from birth [4], and eye gaze processing is crucial for social learning and adult-infant communication [5, 6, 7]. However, little is known about the effect of selectively different experience of eye contact and gaze communication on early social and communicative development. To directly address this question, we assessed 14 sighted infants of blind parents (SIBPs) longitudinally at 6–10 and 12–16 months. Face scanning [8] and gaze following [7, 9] were assessed using eye tracking. In addition, naturalistic observations were made when the infants were interacting with their blind parent and with an unfamiliar sighted adult. Established measures of emergent autistic-like behaviors [10] and standardized tests of cognitive, motor, and linguistic development [11] were also collected. These data were then compared with those obtained from a group of infants of sighted parents. Despite showing typical social skills development overall, infants of blind parents allocated less attention to adult eye movements and gaze direction, an effect that increased between 6–10 and 12–16 months of age. The results suggest that infants adjust their use of adults’ eye gaze depending on gaze communication experience from early in life. The results highlight that human functional brain development shows selective experience-dependent plasticity adaptive to the individual’s specific social environment.
Highlights
A series of group (SIBPs versus controls) by visit repeated-measures ANOVAs revealed that sighted infants of blind parents (SIBPs) looked at adults’ faces differently from controls
In the gaze-following task, SIBPs followed the actor’s gaze as frequently as control infants (Figure 1C; main effect of group, F(1, 35) = 1.09, p = 0.305, hp2 = 0.03), but they showed shorter looking time on the gaze-cued object than control infants (Figure 1D; main effect of group, F(1, 34) = 7.08, p = 0.012, hp2 = 0.17). These results show that SIBPs are less likely to attend to an adult’s eye movement and less likely to use the adult’s gaze direction to control their own allocation of attention
While a recent case series report with SIBPs concluded that the individuals described did not show significant differences in eye gaze processing with a sighted observer in either video or live interactions [17], in the present study, containing the largest sample size and density of measures reported, we demonstrate that selectively different experience in eye contact and gaze communication with the primary caregiver affects the development of eye gaze processing
Summary
A series of group (SIBPs versus controls) by visit (time 1 versus time 2) repeated-measures ANOVAs revealed that SIBPs looked at adults’ faces differently from controls. In the gaze-following task, SIBPs followed the actor’s gaze as frequently as control infants (Figure 1C; main effect of group, F(1, 35) = 1.09, p = 0.305, hp2 = 0.03), but they showed shorter looking time on the gaze-cued object than control infants (Figure 1D; main effect of group, F(1, 34) = 7.08, p = 0.012, hp2 = 0.17). These results show that SIBPs are less likely to attend to an adult’s eye movement and less likely to use the adult’s gaze direction to control their own allocation of attention. There was no evidence that these group differences were modulated by the amount of experience with sighted adults, such as having sighted versus blind father (see Figures S1C–S1F)
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