Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 6, 2026
Gaze in Action: Head-mounted Eye Tracking of Children's Dynamic Visual Attention During Naturalistic Behavior
Published on: November 14, 2018
Gaze following among toddlers
Takeshi Kishimoto1, Yasuhiro Shizawa, Jun Yasuda
1Department of Comparative and Developmental Psychology, Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University, 1-2 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan. kissy@hus.osaka-u.ac.jp
Insights
Three-year-old children can follow their peers' gaze, a crucial skill for coordinated play. This study experimentally confirmed this ability, showing significant gaze-following behavior in social contexts.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Social Cognition
- Child Development
Background:
- Coordinated peer activities in children develop significantly by the third year of life.
- Initiating joint actions requires children to follow their peers' gaze to shared objects.
- The ability of three-year-olds to follow peer gaze has not been previously studied.
Purpose of the Study:
- To experimentally investigate whether three-year-old children can follow their peers' gaze.
- To understand the development of social referencing and joint attention skills in early childhood.
Main Methods:
- An experimental design involving a 'looker' child and a 'follower' child was employed.
- In experimental trials, a looker child was directed to gaze at a doll, and the follower's reaction was observed.
- Control trials involved the doll being displayed without the looker child present to establish a baseline.
Main Results:
- Follower children looked at the target doll in approximately 90% of experimental trials where a peer was gazing at it.
- In control trials, follower children looked at the doll in only about 20% of instances.
- This significant difference indicates a clear ability to follow peer gaze.
Conclusions:
- Three-year-old children demonstrate the capacity to follow their peers' gaze.
- This ability is foundational for developing coordinated social interactions and cooperative play.
- The findings contribute to understanding the emergence of joint attention in early childhood development.
Abstract:
Children's cooperative activities with their peers become markedly coordinated during the 3rd year of life. During these activities, the child needs to follow his/her peers' gaze to objects, and look at the same objects to initiate coordinated action. Since 3-year-olds' ability to follow their peers' gaze has not been studied, we experimentally investigated this in our study. In the experimental trials, an experimenter induced a child (looker) to look at a doll on display, and observed the reaction of another child (follower) who was in front of the looker (and not looking at the doll). In the control trials, the experimenter displayed the doll in an identical manner when the follower was alone. The followers followed the gaze of the lookers, looking at the doll in approximately 90% of the experimental trials, compared with 20% of the control trials. These results indicate that 3-year-olds can follow their peers' gaze.
