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Published on: May 15, 2019
Attentional Predictors of 5-month-olds' Performance on a Looking A-not-B Task
Stuart Marcovitch1, Melissa W Clearfield2, Margaret Swingler3
1Department of Psychology, UNCG, Greensboro, NC, USA.
Insights
Infant attention predicts object permanence skills. For infants of mothers without college degrees, shorter peak looking times also indicate better visual search abilities, highlighting the role of attention and education.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Neuroscience
Background:
- Object permanence and executive functions develop in infancy.
- Attentional skills are crucial for early cognitive development and search behaviors.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate attentional predictors of visual search performance in 5-month-old infants.
- To examine if maternal education level moderates the relationship between attention and infant visual search.
Main Methods:
- Infants' attention to a novel object was measured (percentage of time attending, peak fixation duration).
- Infants' performance on the visual A-not-B task was assessed.
- Statistical analyses explored relationships between attention, maternal education, and task performance in 390 infants.
Main Results:
- Greater percentage of time attending to a novel object positively correlated with visual A-not-B task performance.
- For infants of mothers without college education, shorter peak fixation times also predicted better visual search performance.
Conclusions:
- Infant attention is a key predictor of early visual search abilities.
- Maternal education may influence how attentional factors, like peak fixation, relate to cognitive development in infants.
Abstract:
In the first year of life, the ability to search for hidden objects is an indicator of object permanence and, when multiple locations are involved, executive function (i.e. inhibition, cognitive flexibility and working memory). The current study was designed to examine attentional predictors of search in 5-month-old infants (as measured by the looking A-not-B task), and whether levels of maternal education moderated the effect of the predictors. Specifically, in a separate task, the infants were shown a unique puppet, and we measured the percentage of time attending to the puppet, as well as the length of the longest look (i.e., peak fixation) directed towards the puppet. Across the entire sample (N =390), the percentage of time attending to the puppet was positively related to performance on the visual A-not-B task. However, for infants whose mothers had not completed college, having a shorter peak looking time (after controlling for percentage of time) was also a predictor of visual A-not-B performance. The role of attention, peak fixation and maternal education in visual search is discussed.
