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Published on: November 14, 2018
Developmental tuning of reflexive attentional effect to biological motion cues
Jing Zhao1, Li Wang2, Ying Wang3
11] Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China [2] Center for Cognition and Brain Disorders, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, China, 310000 [3] Zhejiang Key Laboratory for Research in Assessment of Cognitive Impairments, Hangzhou, China, 310000 [4].
Insights
Young children, even at 4 years old, automatically orient their attention to biological motion, like walking. This ability develops from a broad to a fine-tuned process by adulthood.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Developmental Psychology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- The human visual system exhibits high sensitivity to directional information from biological motion.
- Understanding how this sensitivity impacts attentional processes in early development is crucial.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the functional impact of biological motion sensitivity on attentional orienting in young children.
- To determine the developmental trajectory of attentional orienting to biological motion cues.
Main Methods:
- Utilizing point-light walker displays to present biological motion stimuli.
- Assessing attentional orienting responses in 4-year-old children and comparing them to adult patterns.
- Examining the inversion effect in relation to attentional orienting.
Main Results:
- Children as young as 4 years old demonstrate reflexive attentional orienting to the walking direction of upright point-light walkers.
- The inversion effect, a key aspect of attentional orienting, emerges by age 4 and matures towards adult patterns.
- Biological motion signals automatically direct spatial attention in young children.
Conclusions:
- Biological motion cues effectively guide spatial attention distribution in young children.
- A developmental shift occurs in utilizing biological motion cues, progressing from broad to fine-tuned attention.
- These findings illuminate the early development of social attention mechanisms in the human brain.
Abstract:
The human visual system is extremely sensitive to the direction information retrieved from biological motion. In the current study, we investigate the functional impact of this sensitivity on attentional orienting in young children. We found that children as early as 4 years old, like adults, showed a robust reflexive attentional orienting effect to the walking direction of an upright point-light walker, indicating that biological motion signals can automatically direct spatial attention at an early age. More importantly, the inversion effect associated with attentional orienting emerges by 4 years old and gradually develops into a similar pattern found in adults. These results provide strong evidence that biological motion cues can guide the distribution of spatial attention in young children, and highlight a critical development from a broadly- to finely-tuned process of utilizing biological motion cues in the human social brain.
