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Updated: May 26, 2026
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A View of Their Own: Capturing the Egocentric View of Infants and Toddlers with Head-Mounted Cameras
Published on: October 5, 2018
Infants' developing understanding of social gaze
Jonathan S Beier1, Elizabeth S Spelke
1Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, Biology/Psychology Building, College Park, MD 20742, USA. jsbeier@umd.edu
Child Development
|January 10, 2012
Summary
Ten-month-old infants understand social gaze, distinguishing mutual from averted looks. Nine-month-old infants did not show this understanding of social gaze, suggesting development in analyzing goal-directed actions.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
- Social Neuroscience
Background:
- Infants are sensitive to social cues, but their understanding of intentionality in social actions like gaze is still debated.
- Early social interactions lay the foundation for complex social cognition.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether young infants appreciate the intentional, target-directed nature of social gaze in third-party interactions.
- To determine the developmental trajectory of understanding social gaze in the first year of life.
Main Methods:
- Studied 104 infants, comparing 9-month-olds and 10-month-olds.
- Observed infants' discrimination between mutual and averted gaze in social interactions.
- Assessed infants' expectations regarding gaze direction during conversations.
Main Results:
- Ten-month-old infants could discriminate between mutual and averted gaze.
- Ten-month-old infants expected individuals to direct gaze toward their social partner during conversation.
- Nine-month-old infants did not demonstrate these abilities, even with social goal cues.
Conclusions:
- Infants' ability to analyze social gaze significantly improves by the end of the first year.
- This developmental improvement may reflect an emerging understanding of gaze as both a social and goal-directed action.
- Findings shed light on the early development of social cognition and intentionality perception.
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