Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 29, 2026

Gaze in Action: Head-mounted Eye Tracking of Children's Dynamic Visual Attention During Naturalistic Behavior
Published on: November 14, 2018
Micro-analysis of infant looking in a naturalistic social setting: insights from biologically based models of
Kaya de Barbaro1, Andrea Chiba, Gedeon O Deák
1Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0515, USA.
Abstract:
A current theory of attention posits that several micro-indices of attentional vigilance are dependent on activation of the locus coeruleus, a brainstem nucleus that regulates cortical norepinephrine activity (Aston-Jones et al., 1999). This theory may account for many findings in the infant literature, while highlighting important new areas for research and theory on infant attention. We examined the visual behaviors of n = 16 infants (6-7 months) while they attended to multiple spatially distributed targets in a naturalistic environment. We coded four measures of attentional vigilance, adapted from studies of norepinergic modulation of animal attention: rate of fixations, duration of fixations, latency to reorientation, and target 'hits'. These measures showed a high degree of coherence in individual infants, in parallel with findings from animal studies. Results also suggest that less vigilant infants showed greater habituation to the trial structure and more attentiveness to less salient stimuli during periods of high attentional competition. This pattern of results is predicted by the Aston-Jones model of attention, but could not be explained by the standard information processing model.
Related Concept Videos
Naturalistic Observations
The Nativist Approach
Relationship with Parents: Attachment
Piaget's Stage 1 of Cognitive Development
Exploration...
Socioemotional Development during Infancy
Primary Temperament Types
Stella Chess...
Attachment

