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Updated: Dec 7, 2025
Gaze in Action: Head-mounted Eye Tracking of Children's Dynamic Visual Attention During Naturalistic Behavior
Published on: November 14, 2018
Associations between individual variations in visual attention at 9 months and behavioral competencies at 18 months
Juha Pyykkö1, Ulla Ashorn1, Eletina Chilora2
1Center for Child Health Research, Faculty of Medicine and Health Technology, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland.
Insights
Infant visual attention tests at 9 months did not predict cognitive skills at 18 months in rural Malawi. Early attention measures are not reliable predictors of later cognitive development in this context.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
- Global Health
Background:
- Infant visual attention is theorized to correlate with later cognitive abilities.
- Understanding early predictors of cognitive development is crucial, especially in diverse settings.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the predictive validity of infant visual attention measures for cognitive skills in rural Malawian infants.
- To assess if eye-tracking attention tests at 9 months correlate with cognitive, motor, language, and socioemotional development at 18 months.
Main Methods:
- Eye-tracking was used to assess visual orienting, anticipatory looks, and face attention in 9-month-old infants (n=198-377).
- Cognitive control (A-not-B), motor, language, and socioemotional development were assessed at 18 months.
- Correlations were analyzed between attention measures and later developmental outcomes, controlling for physical growth and socioeconomic factors.
Main Results:
- No significant associations were found between infant visual attention at 9 months and cognitive skills at 18 months (correlations: -0.08 to 0.14).
- Measures of physical growth and socioeconomic status also showed no correlation with 18-month cognitive outcomes (correlations: -0.10 to 0.19).
Conclusions:
- Current infant visual attention tests are not predictive of cognitive skills in 18-month-old infants in this Malawian sample.
- Findings suggest potential limitations of current tests or unique aspects of early development in low-resource environments.
Abstract:
Theoretical and empirical considerations suggest that individual differences in infant visual attention correlate with variations in cognitive skills later in childhood. Here we tested this hypothesis in infants from rural Malawi (n = 198-377, depending on analysis), who were assessed with eye tracking tests of visual orienting, anticipatory looks, and attention to faces at 9 months, and more conventional tests of cognitive control (A-not-B), motor, language, and socioemotional development at 18 months. The results showed no associations between measures of infant attention at 9 months and cognitive skills at 18 months, either in analyses linking infant visual orienting with broad cognitive outcomes or analyses linking specific constructs between the two time points (i.e., switching of anticipatory looks and manual reaching responses), as correlations varied between -0.08 and 0.14. Measures of physical growth, and family socioeconomic characteristics were also not correlated with cognitive outcomes at 18 months in the current sample (correlations between -0.10 and 0.19). The results do not support the use of the current tests of infant visual attention as a predictive tool for 18-month-old infants' cognitive skills in the Malawian setting. The results are discussed in light of the potential limitations of the employed infant tests as well as potentially unique characteristics of early cognitive development in low-resource settings.
