Individual Differences in Infant Oculomotor Behavior During the Viewing of Complex Naturalistic Scenes

Abstract

Little research hitherto has examined how individual differences in attention, as assessed using standard experimental paradigms, relate to individual differences in how attention is spontaneously allocated in more naturalistic contexts. Here, we analyzed the time intervals between refoveating eye movements (fixation durations) while typically developing 11-month-old infants viewed a 90-min battery ranging from complex dynamic to noncomplex static materials. The same infants also completed experimental assessments of cognitive control, psychomotor reaction times (RT), processing speed (indexed via peak look during habituation), and arousal (indexed via tonic pupil size). High test–retest reliability was found for fixation duration, across testing sessions and across types of viewing material. Increased cognitive control and increased arousal were associated with reduced variability in fixation duration. For fixations to dynamic stimuli, in which a large proportion of saccades may be exogenously cued, we found that psychomotor RT measures were most predictive of mean fixation duration; for fixations to static stimuli, in contrast, in which there is less exogenous attentional capture, we found that psychomotor RT did not predict performance, but that measures of cognitive control and arousal did. The implications of these findings for understanding the development of attentional control in naturalistic settings are discussed.

Infants' visual sustained attention is higher during joint play than solo play: is this due to increased endogenous attention control or exogenous stimulus capture?

“…One telling comparison may be to liken the present findings, that compare infant attention during Joint Play and Solo Play, with previous findings that compare infant attention towards static and dynamic screen stimuli (Courage et al, 2006;Richards, 2010;Shaddy & Colombo, 2004). At the same time, the exogenous influences on gaze behaviour during the viewing of dynamic stimuli are thought to be stronger (Courage et al, 2006;Wass & Smith, 2014a, 2014b, and, most likely because of this, infants' attention durations towards dynamic stimuli are markedly higher than towards static stimuli (Shaddy & Colombo, 2004 (Carpenter et al, 1998), along with superior visual attention control (Niedźwiecka et al, 2017)? At the same time, the exogenous influences on gaze behaviour during the viewing of dynamic stimuli are thought to be stronger (Courage et al, 2006;Wass & Smith, 2014a, 2014b, and, most likely because of this, infants' attention durations towards dynamic stimuli are markedly higher than towards static stimuli (Shaddy & Colombo, 2004 (Carpenter et al, 1998), along with superior visual attention control (Niedźwiecka et al, 2017)?…”

Infant Attention Is Dynamically Modulated With Changing Arousal Levels

“…We know that infants show longer looks while observing complex or dynamic images as well as films, and that they show shorter looks when observing static or simpler images (Courage et al, 2006;Wass & Smith, 2014). It is possible that, during a session, looking measures are independently affected by differences between the tasks as well as by changing arousal levels.…”

Video Deficit in Toddlers’ Object Retrieval: What Eye Movements Reveal About Online Cognition

“…Researchers have yet to compare toddlers’ eye movements when watching the same events on video versus in person, particularly as related to subsequent learning. Moreover, while toddlers (15–30 months) are likely to exhibit a video deficit for learning (Barr, ), most eye‐tracking studies that use video stimuli are limited to younger infants and adults (e.g., Frank et al., ; Kirkorian et al., ; Mital, Smith, Hill, & Henderson, ; Taylor & Herbert, , ; Wass & Smith, ). Thus, it remains unclear whether the video deficit is at least partly the result of differences in online processing during knowledge acquisition when viewing video versus in‐person events.…”