Abstract
When engaging in joint attention, one person directs another person's attention to an object (Initiating Joint Attention, IJA), and the second person's attention follows (Responding to Joint Attention, RJA). As such, joint attention must occur within the context of a social interaction. This ability is critical to language and social development; yet the neural bases for this pivotal skill remain understudied. This paucity of research is likely due to the challenge in acquiring functional MRI data during a naturalistic, contingent social interaction. To examine the neural bases of both IJA and RJA we implemented a dual-video set-up that allowed for a face-to-face interaction between subject and experimenter via video during fMRI data collection. In each trial, participants either followed the experimenter's gaze to a target (RJA) or cued the experimenter to look at the target (IJA). A control condition, solo attention (SA), was included in which the subject shifted gaze to a target while the experimenter closed her eyes. Block and event-related analyses were conducted and revealed common and distinct regions for IJA and RJA. Distinct regions included the ventromedial prefrontal cortex for RJA and intraparietal sulcus and middle frontal gyrus for IJA (as compared to SA). Conjunction analyses revealed overlap in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dMPFC) and right posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) for IJA and RJA (as compared to SA) for the event analyses. Functional connectivity analyses during a resting baseline suggest joint attention processes recruit distinct but interacting networks, including social-cognitive, voluntary attention orienting, and visual networks. This novel experimental set-up allowed for the identification of the neural bases of joint attention during a real-time interaction and findings suggest that whether one is the initiator or responder, the dMPFC and right pSTS, are selectively recruited during periods of joint attention.
Highlights
Imagine a typical scene at a zoo: a two-year-old child points into an enclosure, while looking at her father and saying “Ba.” The father looks at the child, into the enclosure, back at the child, and says “Yes! It’s a bear!” In this scenario, the child has made a bid to initiate joint attention on something in the enclosure; the parent responds by attending to the likely target, and returning attention to the child to share the rewards of the interaction.These simple, automatic, and everyday behaviors are the foundations of our abilities to communicate with and learn from others from infancy through adulthood
Mean accuracy for all conditions was above 98%; an effect of accuracy was found in that accuracy was slightly lower in initiating joint attention (IJA) than responds to a joint attention bid (RJA) trials
Duration of attention events varied by condition: the events were longer in solo attention (SA) than joint attention trials; and longer when participants responded to rather than initiated joint attention
Summary
It’s a bear!” In this scenario, the child has made a bid to initiate joint attention on something in the enclosure; the parent responds by attending to the likely target (the bear), and returning attention to the child to share the rewards of the interaction. These simple, automatic, and everyday behaviors are the foundations of our abilities to communicate with and learn from others from infancy through adulthood.
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