Early Development of Visual Attention: Change, Stability, and Longitudinal Associations

Abstract

Visual attention is a basic mechanism of information gathering and environment selection and consequently plays a fundamental role in influencing developmental trajectories. Here, we highlight evidence for predictive associations from early visual attention to emotion regulation, executive function, language and broader cognitive ability, mathematics and literacy skills, and neurodevelopmental conditions. Development of visual attention is also multifaceted and nonlinear. In daily life, core functions such as orienting, selective filtering, and processing of visual inputs are intertwined and influenced by many other cognitive components. Furthermore, the demands of an attention task vary according to the experience, motivation, and cognitive and physical constraints of participants, while the mechanisms underlying performance may change with development. Thus, markers of attention may need to be interpreted differently across development and between populations. We summarize research that has combined multiple measurements and techniques to further our understanding of visual attention development and highlight possibilities for the future.

Atypical development of attentional control associates with later adaptive functioning, autism and ADHD traits

“…Yet stability in individual differences is nested within this developmental progression. Whilst Putnam, Rothbart, and Gartstein (2008) report only weak correlations between infant and toddler attentional control scores, this may be attributed to the wide age-span for their infant group which crosses the 7-to-9-month mark, considered to be a critical period of transition in attention development (Hendry et al, 2019). By toddlerhood, longitudinal stability correlations for attentional control scales are moderate-to-large across spans of 6-18 months (Gaertner et al, 2008;Putnam et al, 2006).…”

“…To better understand whether attentional control is an intermediate phenotype of autism and ADHD irrespective of these feedback loops we need to monitor relevant behaviours from as early as possible postnatally, before they are overly influenced by intellectual ability, compensatory or secondary mechanisms, and interactions with co-occurring conditions (Johnson, Gliga, Jones, & Charman, 2015). The ability to consciously control one's own attention emerges prior to a baby's first birthday, continues to develop rapidly in infancy and toddlerhood, and acts as a foundation for the development of more-complex cognitive processes (Hendry et al, 2019;Hendry, Jones, & Charman, 2016).…”

“…Previously, cross-domain disruption between 14 and 36 months has been observed for a sub-group of infants with later-diagnosed autism Landa, Gross, Stuart, & Faherty, 2013;Sacrey et al, 2019). Should this prove to be the case it invites the question whether disruption to development of attentional control, as a domain of fundamental importance to a broad range of aspects of cognition, is itself the trigger for domain-wide disruption (Hendry et al, 2019;Johnson, 2012Johnson, , 2017.…”

Associations between individual variations in visual attention at 9 months and behavioral competencies at 18 months in rural Malawi

“…Because looking behavior can be studied with eye tracking long before children reach the age at which they can be instructed to perform more complex cognitive tasks [2,3], there have been hopes that the measurement of infant attentional skills may provide a way to investigate individual variations at an earlier age than is possible with traditional cognitive tests (e.g. [4]). This possibility is supported by theoretical considerations and empirical, longitudinal data.…”

Associations between individual variations in visual attention at 9 months and behavioral competencies at 18 months in rural Malawi

“…Because looking behavior can be studied with eye tracking long before children reach the age at which they can be instructed to perform more complex cognitive tasks [2,3], there have been hopes that the measurement of infant attentional March 25, 2020 1/15 skills may provide a way to investigate individual variations at an earlier age than is possible with traditional cognitive tests (e.g. [4]).…”