When it pays off to take a look: Infants learn to follow an object’s motion 
with their gaze — Especially if it features eyes

Michel, Christine; Pauen, Sabina; Hoehl, Stefanie

doi:10.1111/infa.12464

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When it pays off to take a look: Infants learn to follow an object’s motion with their gaze — Especially if it features eyes

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Michel, Christine
Max Planck Research Group Early Social Cognition, MPI for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Max Planck Society;
Faculty of Education, University of Leipzig, Germany;

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Citation

Michel, C., Pauen, S., & Hoehl, S. (2022). When it pays off to take a look: Infants learn to follow an object’s motion with their gaze — Especially if it features eyes. Infancy. doi:10.1111/infa.12464.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-000A-2261-2

Abstract

Social cues and instrumental learning are two aspects potentially fostering early gaze following. We systematically investigated the influence of social features (schematic eyes vs. reverse-contrast eyes) and gaze-contingent reinforcement (elicited vs. not elicited) on 4-month-olds' learning to attend to gaze-cued objects. In 4 experiments, we tested infants' (N = 74) gaze following of a turning block with schematic or reverse-contrast eyes. In Experiments 1 and 2, infants could elicit an attractive animation in a training phase via interactive eye tracking by following the turning of the block. Experiments 3 and 4 were yoked controls without contingent reinforcement. Infants did not spontaneously follow the motion of the block. Four-month-olds always followed the block after training when it featured schematic eyes. When the block featured reverse-contrast eyes, the training phase only affected infants' looking behavior without reinforcement. While speaking to a certain degree of plasticity, findings stress the importance of eyes for guiding infants' attention.