Gaze Following in Human Infants Depends on Communicative Signals
Open accessAbstract
Humans are extremely sensitive to ostensive signals, like eye contact or having their name called, that indicate someone's communicative intention toward them [1-3]. Infants also pay attention to these signals [4-6], but it is unknown whether they appreciate their significance in the initiation of communicative acts. In two experiments, we employed video presentation of an actor turning toward one of two objects and recorded infants' gaze-following behavior [7-13] with eye-tracking techniques [11, 12]. We found that 6-month-old infants followed the adult's gaze (a potential communicative-referential signal) toward an object only when such an act is preceded by ostensive cues such as direct gaze (experiment 1) and infant-directed speech (experiment 2). Such a link between the presence of ostensive signals and gaze following suggests that this behavior serves a functional role in assisting infants to effectively respond to referential communication directed to them. Whereas gaze following in many nonhuman species supports social information gathering [14-18], in humans it initially appears to reflect the expectation of a more active, communicative role from the information source.
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- Authors
- Senju, A., & Csibra, G.
- Affiliations
- Birkbeck, University of London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Senju, Atsushi
- Venue
- Current Biology
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2008-05
- Volume
- 18
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- 668-671
- ISSN
- 0960-9822 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2125270257
- Cited by
- 749
- References
- 35
- Citations by year
- 2026: 40 · 2025: 37 · 2024: 68 · 2023: 43 · 2022: 45 · 2021: 37 · 2020: 86 · 2019: 37 · 2018: 42 · 2017: 45 · 2016: 38 · 2015: 42 · 2014: 43 · 2013: 45 · 2012: 35
- FWCI
- 37.49
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- other-oa
- www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
- www.elsevier.com/legal/tdmrep-license (tdm)
- www.elsevier.com/open-access/userlicense/1.0/ (vor, 1939 d)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-017 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-037 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-012 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-029 (stm-asf)
- doi.org/10.15223/policy-004 (stm-asf)
- Locations
- Current Biology (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- BIROn (Birkbeck, University of London) (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Medical Research Council
- Economic and Social Research Council (ES/E003788/1)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Keywords
- gaze following, infant social cognition, ostensive communication, referential communication, direct gaze, infant-directed speech, communicative intention, 6-month-old infants
- MeSH terms
- Attention, Communication, Eye Movements, Female, Humans, Imitative Behavior, Infant, Male, Infant Behavior
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