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Updated: May 21, 2026
Gaze in Action: Head-mounted Eye Tracking of Children's Dynamic Visual Attention During Naturalistic Behavior
Published on: November 14, 2018
Attentional dynamics of infant visual foraging
Steven S Robertson1, Sarah Enos Watamura, Makeba Parramore Wilbourn
1Department of Human Development, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA. ssr4@cornell.edu
Insights
Infant visual foraging involves shifting attention away from recently viewed areas and anticipating the next focus. This dynamic process aids efficient exploration of new environments by young infants.
Area of Science:
- Developmental psychology
- Cognitive neuroscience
- Infant visual attention
Background:
- Young infants actively explore their environment through visual foraging.
- Understanding the dynamics of infant visual attention is crucial for developmental science.
- Previous research often conflated looking and attending, limiting insights into visual foraging.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce a novel method for simultaneously tracking spatial attention during free looking in infants.
- To investigate the dynamics of visual foraging in 12-week-old infants.
- To differentiate between overt looking and covert attention in early development.
Main Methods:
- Utilized steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs) to monitor infant attention.
- Developed a technique to track spatial attention to both fixated and non-fixated locations.
- Observed 12-week-old infants during naturalistic free looking tasks.
Main Results:
- Infant visual foraging patterns show a bias away from recently attended locations.
- Attention is redirected to new targets in advance of actual eye gaze (overt looking).
- This anticipatory attention shift supports efficient exploration of complex visual environments.
Conclusions:
- Infant visual foraging is a dynamic process involving both overt and covert attention.
- The described SSVEP method provides new insights into the real-time dynamics of infant attention.
- This research advances our understanding of how infants efficiently explore and learn from their surroundings.
Abstract:
Young infants actively gather information about their world through visual foraging, but the dynamics of this important behavior is poorly understood, partly because developmental scientists have often equated its essential components, looking and attending. Here we describe a method for simultaneously tracking spatial attention to fixated and nonfixated locations during free looking in 12-week-old infants using steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEPs). Using this method, we found that the sequence of locations an infant inspects during free looking reflects a momentary bias away from locations that were recently the target of covert attention, quickly followed by the redirection of attention--in advance of gaze--to the next target of fixation. The result is a pattern of visual foraging that is likely to support efficient exploration of complex environments by facilitating the inspection of new locations in real time.
