Joint attention and object learning in 5‐ and 7‐month‐old infants
Citations Over TimeTop 10% of 2007 papers
Abstract
Abstract We examined the effects of joint attention for object learning in 5‐ and 7‐month‐old infants. Infants interacted with an adult social partner who taught them about a novel toy in two conditions. In the Joint Attention condition, the adult spoke about the toy while alternating gaze between the infant and the toy, while in the Object Only condition, the adult looked to the toy and to a spot on the ceiling, but never at the infant. In the test trials following each social interaction, we presented infants with the ‘familiarization’ toy and a novel toy, and monitored looking times to each object. We found that 7‐month‐olds looked significantly longer to the novel toy following the Joint Attention relative to the Object Only condition, while 5‐month‐old infants did not show a significant difference across conditions. We interpret these results to suggest that joint attention facilitated 7‐month‐old infants' encoding of information about the familiarization object. Implications for the ontogeny of infant learning in joint attention contexts are discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Related Papers
- → Gaze‐following and joint visual attention in nonhuman animals(2004)64 cited
- → The impact of maternal gaze responsiveness on infants’ gaze following and later vocabulary development(2023)5 cited
- → Joint Attention during Infancy and Early Childhood Across Cultures(2015)4 cited
- → Developmental Change in Joint Attention and the Effect of Joint Attention on Child Development(2000)
- Social orienting in gaze-based interactions: Consequences of joint gaze(2015)