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    Brain responses reveal young infants’ sensitivity to when a social partner follows their gaze

    Grossmann, Tobias and Lloyd-Fox, Sarah and Johnson, Mark H. (2013) Brain responses reveal young infants’ sensitivity to when a social partner follows their gaze. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience 6 , pp. 155-161. ISSN 1878-9293.

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    Abstract

    Infants’ ability to follow another person's eye gaze has been studied extensively and is considered to be an important and early emerging social cognitive skill. However, it is not known whether young infants detect when a social partner follows their gaze to an object. This sensitivity might help infants in soliciting information from others and serve as an important basis for social learning. In this study, we used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to measure 5-month-old infants’ frontal and temporal cortex responses during social interactions in which a social partner (virtual agent) either followed the infants’ gaze to an object (congruent condition) or looked to an object that the infant had not looked at before (incongruent condition). The fNIRS data revealed that a region in the left prefrontal cortex showed an increased response when compared to baseline during the congruent condition but not during the incongruent condition, suggesting that infants are sensitive to when someone follows their gaze. The findings and their implications for the development of early social cognition are discussed in relation to what is known about the brain processes engaged by adults during these kinds of social interactions.

    Metadata

    Item Type: Article
    Keyword(s) / Subject(s): gaze, joint attention, infancy, prefrontal cortex, fNIRS
    School: Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science > School of Psychological Sciences
    Research Centres and Institutes: Brain and Cognitive Development, Centre for (CBCD)
    Depositing User: Administrator
    Date Deposited: 04 Oct 2013 09:34
    Last Modified: 02 Aug 2023 17:07
    URI: https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/8358

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