Related Experiment Videos
Eye contact detection in humans from birth
Teresa Farroni1, Gergely Csibra, Francesca Simion
1Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, School of Psychology, Birkbeck College, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX, United Kingdom. t.farroni@bbk.ac.uk
Insights
Newborns show a preference for direct eye contact, indicating an innate sensitivity to mutual gaze. This early social responsiveness in infants forms the foundation for developing crucial social skills.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Infant Behavior
Background:
- Eye contact is crucial for human communication.
- Infants rapidly learn from others' looking behaviors within their first year.
- Early sensitivity to gaze direction is hypothesized to be fundamental for social development.
Purpose of the Study:
- To demonstrate newborns' special sensitivity to direct eye contact from birth.
- To investigate neural processing of faces with direct versus averted gaze in infants.
- To explore the foundational role of mutual gaze in early social skill development.
Main Methods:
- Experiment 1: Tested 2- to 5-day-old newborns' discrimination between direct and averted gaze.
- Experiment 2: Measured 4-month-old infants' brain electric activity (EEG) in response to direct and averted gaze.
- Utilized behavioral observation and electroencephalography (EEG) to assess infant responses to social cues.
Main Results:
- Newborns demonstrated a preference for looking at faces with direct eye contact.
- Four-month-old infants exhibited enhanced neural processing of direct gaze compared to averted gaze.
- Results indicate a significant, early-emerging sensitivity to mutual gaze in human infants.
Conclusions:
- Human infants, from birth, prefer mutual gaze, highlighting an innate social orientation.
- Enhanced neural processing of direct gaze emerges early in infancy.
- This early sensitivity to mutual gaze is a primary foundation for subsequent social skill development.
Abstract:
Making eye contact is the most powerful mode of establishing a communicative link between humans. During their first year of life, infants learn rapidly that the looking behaviors of others conveys significant information. Two experiments were carried out to demonstrate special sensitivity to direct eye contact from birth. The first experiment tested the ability of 2- to 5-day-old newborns to discriminate between direct and averted gaze. In the second experiment, we measured 4-month-old infants' brain electric activity to assess neural processing of faces when accompanied by direct (as opposed to averted) eye gaze. The results show that, from birth, human infants prefer to look at faces that engage them in mutual gaze and that, from an early age, healthy babies show enhanced neural processing of direct gaze. The exceptionally early sensitivity to mutual gaze demonstrated in these studies is arguably the major foundation for the later development of social skills.