Abstract
This study demonstrates evidence for a foundational process underlying active vision in older infants during object play. Using head-mounted eye-tracking and motion capture, looks to an object are shown to be tightly linked to and synchronous with a stilled head, regardless of the duration of gaze, for infants 12 to 24 months of age. Despite being a developmental period of rapid and marked changes in motor abilities, the dynamic coordination of head stabilization and sustained gaze to a visual target is developmentally invariant during the examined age range. The findings indicate that looking with an aligned head and eyes is a fundamental property of human vision and highlights the importance of studying looking behavior in freely moving perceivers in everyday contexts, opening new questions about the role of body movement in both typical and atypical development of visual attention.
Highlights
Gaze is directed to select targets and is maintained on selected targets to gather relevant information
There is still a great deal not known about looking behavior in freely moving individuals in the purposeful tasks of everyday life (Jovancevic-Misic & Hayhoe, 2009; Lappi, 2016; Schmitow, Stenberg, Billard, & Hofsten, 2013; Tatler, Hayhoe, Land, & Ballard, 2011). This lack of knowledge poses a significant barrier to research on a current topic of interest in developmental science: the ability of newly autonomous toddlers to maintain gaze on a single object in the context of natural play is increasingly implicated as both a biomarker and training ground for later development of the executive functions mediated by the prefrontal cortex (Brandes-Aitken, Braren, Swingler, Voegtline, & Blair, 2019; Fisher, 2019; Rosen, Amso, & McLaughlin, 2019; Werchan & Amso, 2017; Yu & Smith, 2016)
The present study focuses on eye-head coordination and gaze duration in 12- to 24-month old infants because sustained gaze on an object during this period strongly predicts cognitive development more generally; from individual differences in visual attention (Lansink & Richards, 1997; Richards & Casey, 1992; Ruff, 1986), to differences in self-regulation and self-control (Kochanska, Murray, & Harlan, 2000; Reck & Hund, 2011; Ruff, 1986), as well as language development (Welsh, Nix, Blair, Bierman, & Nelson, 2010; Yu, Suanda, & Smith, 2019) and later school achievement (Kannass, Oakes, & Shaddy, 2006; Ruff & Lawson, 1990)
Summary
Gaze is directed to select targets and is maintained on selected targets to gather relevant information. There is still a great deal not known about looking behavior in freely moving individuals in the purposeful tasks of everyday life (Jovancevic-Misic & Hayhoe, 2009; Lappi, 2016; Schmitow, Stenberg, Billard, & Hofsten, 2013; Tatler, Hayhoe, Land, & Ballard, 2011) This lack of knowledge poses a significant barrier to research on a current topic of interest in developmental science: the ability of newly autonomous toddlers to maintain gaze on a single object in the context of natural play is increasingly implicated as both a biomarker and training ground for later development of the executive functions mediated by the prefrontal cortex (Brandes-Aitken, Braren, Swingler, Voegtline, & Blair, 2019; Fisher, 2019; Rosen, Amso, & McLaughlin, 2019; Werchan & Amso, 2017; Yu & Smith, 2016). The findings open new questions about the role of body movement in both typical and atypical development of visual attention
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