Is there an innate gaze module? Evidence from human neonates

Bátki, Anna; Baron‐Cohen, Simon; Wheelwright, Sally; Connellan, Jennifer; Ahluwalia, Jag

doi:10.1016/s0163-6383(01)00037-6

Cited by 340 publications

(216 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…They might concede, however, that there is likely to be some innate basis for theory of mind, such as newborn infants' interest in the eyes and face (Bakti et al 2000;Johnson & Morton 1991). This interest means that infants' attention is focused on a region that expresses mental states so that they are ideally situated to learn about theory of mind either through their own initiative (e.g., by asking others questions about motivations for actions; Dunn 1988), or through others' initiative (e.g., through parent teaching or siblings' and peers' influence in play and elsewhere).…”

Section: Ted Ruffmanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constructing an understanding of mind: The development of children's social understanding within social interaction

2004

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Abstract:Theories of children's developing understanding of mind tend to emphasize either individualistic processes of theory formation, maturation, or introspection, or the process of enculturation. However, such theories must be able to account for the accumulating evidence of the role of social interaction in the development of social understanding. We propose an alternative account, according to which the development of children's social understanding occurs within triadic interaction involving the child's experience of the world as well as communicative interaction with others about their experience and beliefs (Chapman 1991;. It is through such triadic interaction that children gradually construct knowledge of the world as well as knowledge of other people. We contend that the extent and nature of the social interaction children experience will influence the development of children's social understanding. Increased opportunity to engage in cooperative social interaction and exposure to talk about mental states should facilitate the development of social understanding. We review evidence suggesting that children's understanding of mind develops gradually in the context of social interaction. Therefore, we need a theory of development in this area that accords a fundamental role to social interaction, yet does not assume that children simply adopt socially available knowledge but rather that children construct an understanding of mind within social interaction.Keywords: language; Piaget; social interaction; theories of mind; Vygotsky; Wittgenstein et al. 1998;Symons & Clark 2000), mothers' education (Cutting & Dunn 1999), and socioeconomic circumstances (Holmes et al. 1996).Furthermore, a number of studies have found correlations between language and social understanding (e.g., Cutting & Dunn 1999; de Villers 2000; Happé 1995;Jenkins & Astington 1996). In longitudinal studies, forms of family talk about mental states have been found to be related to later success on false belief tests (e.g., Brown et al. 1996;Dunn et al. 1991a;Ruffman et al. 2002). In addition, mothers who think of their children in mentalistic terms ("mindmindedness"), and therefore, presumably talk to their children about the psychological world, have children who are more advanced in understanding beliefs than are other children (Meins & Fernyhough 1999;Meins et al. 1998). Similar correlations between family interaction and the development of children's understanding of emotions have also been reported (e.g., Dunn et al. 1991b;Hooven et al. 1995;Kuebli et al. 1995;Steele et al. 1999). In a longitudinal study, Astington and Jenkins (1999) found that earlier language abilities predict later false belief performance but earlier false belief competence does not predict later language abilities, supporting the conclusion that language is important in social cognitive development.Another source of evidence that social interaction is important for the development of a mentalistic understanding comes from research with deaf children. A number o...

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Section: Ted Ruffmanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constructing an understanding of mind: The development of children's social understanding within social interaction

2004

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“…of a face than at other visual patterns, including a face outline with reconfigured internal parts [26][27][28] and also prefer direct gaze over averted or closed eyes [29,30]. The mechanisms underlying these preferences are not well understood.…”

Section: Viewing Behavior and Gaze Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Autism and the development of face processing

Golarai

Grill-Spector

Reiss

2006

Clinical Neuroscience Research

159

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Autism is a pervasive developmental condition, characterized by impairments in non-verbal communication, social relationships and stereotypical patterns of behavior. A large body of evidence suggests that several aspects of face processing are impaired in autism, including anomalies in gaze processing, memory for facial identity and recognition of facial expressions of emotion. In search of neural markers of anomalous face processing in autism, much interest has focused on a network of brain regions that are implicated in social cognition and face processing. In this review, we will focus on three such regions, namely the STS for its role in processing gaze and facial movements, the FFA in face detection and identification and the amygdala in processing facial expressions of emotion. Much evidence suggests that a better understanding of the normal development of these specialized regions is essential for discovering the neural bases of face processing anomalies in autism. Thus, we will also examine the available literature on the normal development of face processing. Key unknowns in this research area are the neuro-developmental processes, the role of experience and the interactions among components of the face processing system in shaping each of the specialized regions for processing faces during normal development and in autism. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease.

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“…Arizpe et al, 2012;Barton et al, 2006;Janik et al, 1978). Eyes are also the most attended feature regardless of face familiarity (Heisz & Shore, 2008) and this preference is seen in infants (Maurer, 1985), with a clear sensitivity to gaze direction already present at birth (Batki et al, 2000). The eyes seem to be the diagnostic feature used to recognize identity, several facial expressions, and gender (Dupuis-Roy et al, 2009;Schyns et al, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early sensitivity for eyes within faces: A new neuronal account of holistic and featural processing

et al. 2014

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Eyes are central to face processing however their role in early face encoding as reflected by the N170 ERP component is unclear. Using eye tracking to enforce fixation on specific facial features, we found that the N170 was larger for fixation on the eyes compared to fixation on the forehead, nasion, nose or mouth, which all yielded similar amplitudes. This eye sensitivity was seen in both upright and inverted faces and was lost in eyeless faces, demonstrating it was due to the presence of eyes at fovea. Upright eyeless faces elicited largest N170 at nose fixation. Importantly, the N170 face inversion effect (FIE) was strongly attenuated in eyeless faces when fixation was on the eyes but was less attenuated for nose fixation and was normal when fixation was on the mouth. These results suggest the impact of eye removal on the N170 FIE is a function of the angular distance between the fixated feature and the eye location. We propose the Lateral Inhibition, Face Template and Eye Detector based (LIFTED) model which accounts for all the present N170 results including the FIE and its interaction with eye removal. Although eyes elicit the largest N170 response, reflecting the activity of an eye detector, the processing of upright faces is holistic and entails an inhibitory mechanism from neurons coding parafoveal information onto neurons coding foveal information. The LIFTED model provides a neuronal account of holistic and featural processing involved in upright and inverted faces and offers precise predictions for further testing.

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Is there an innate gaze module? Evidence from human neonates

Cited by 340 publications

References 28 publications

Constructing an understanding of mind: The development of children's social understanding within social interaction

Constructing an understanding of mind: The development of children's social understanding within social interaction

Autism and the development of face processing

Early sensitivity for eyes within faces: A new neuronal account of holistic and featural processing

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