Building blocks of joint attention: Early sensitivity to having one’s own gaze followed

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Detecting when one’s own gaze has been followed is a critical component of joint attention, but little is known about its development. To address this issue, we used electroencephalography (EEG) to record infant neural responses at 6.5 and 9.5 months during observation of an adult either turning to look at the same object as the infant (congruent actor), or turning to look at a different object (incongruent actor). We also used a preferential looking paradigm to investigate whether infants would demonstrate a preference for the congruent versus incongruent actor. Greater suppression of alpha band activity in the congruent compared to incongruent condition was revealed at both ages in central and parietal regions. However, the effect of congruency on alpha suppression was stronger at 9.5 months, and only at this age did infants demonstrate a preference towards looking at the congruent actor. Together, these results suggest that although infants are sensitive to others’ gaze following from early on, important neural and behavioural developments occur between 6.5 and 9.5 months.

Related collections

Most cited references 84

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

EEG alpha and theta oscillations reflect cognitive and memory performance: a review and analysis.

W. Klimesch (1999)

Evidence is presented that EEG oscillations in the alpha and theta band reflect cognitive and memory performance in particular. Good performance is related to two types of EEG phenomena (i) a tonic increase in alpha but a decrease in theta power, and (ii) a large phasic (event-related) decrease in alpha but increase in theta, depending on the type of memory demands. Because alpha frequency shows large interindividual differences which are related to age and memory performance, this double dissociation between alpha vs. theta and tonic vs. phasic changes can be observed only if fixed frequency bands are abandoned. It is suggested to adjust the frequency windows of alpha and theta for each subject by using individual alpha frequency as an anchor point. Based on this procedure, a consistent interpretation of a variety of findings is made possible. As an example, in a similar way as brain volume does, upper alpha power increases (but theta power decreases) from early childhood to adulthood, whereas the opposite holds true for the late part of the lifespan. Alpha power is lowered and theta power enhanced in subjects with a variety of different neurological disorders. Furthermore, after sustained wakefulness and during the transition from waking to sleeping when the ability to respond to external stimuli ceases, upper alpha power decreases, whereas theta increases. Event-related changes indicate that the extent of upper alpha desynchronization is positively correlated with (semantic) long-term memory performance, whereas theta synchronization is positively correlated with the ability to encode new information. The reviewed findings are interpreted on the basis of brain oscillations. It is suggested that the encoding of new information is reflected by theta oscillations in hippocampo-cortical feedback loops, whereas search and retrieval processes in (semantic) long-term memory are reflected by upper alpha oscillations in thalamo-cortical feedback loops. Copyright 1999 Elsevier Science B.V.

0 comments Cited 871 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Understanding and sharing intentions: the origins of cultural cognition.

Michael Tomasello, Malinda Carpenter, Josep Call … (2005)

We propose that the crucial difference between human cognition and that of other species is the ability to participate with others in collaborative activities with shared goals and intentions: shared intentionality. Participation in such activities requires not only especially powerful forms of intention reading and cultural learning, but also a unique motivation to share psychological states with others and unique forms of cognitive representation for doing so. The result of participating in these activities is species-unique forms of cultural cognition and evolution, enabling everything from the creation and use of linguistic symbols to the construction of social norms and individual beliefs to the establishment of social institutions. In support of this proposal we argue and present evidence that great apes (and some children with autism) understand the basics of intentional action, but they still do not participate in activities involving joint intentions and attention (shared intentionality). Human children's skills of shared intentionality develop gradually during the first 14 months of life as two ontogenetic pathways intertwine: (1) the general ape line of understanding others as animate, goal-directed, and intentional agents; and (2) a species-unique motivation to share emotions, experience, and activities with other persons. The developmental outcome is children's ability to construct dialogic cognitive representations, which enable them to participate in earnest in the collectivity that is human cognition.

0 comments Cited 757 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

The role of prefrontal cortex in working-memory capacity, executive attention, and general fluid intelligence: An individual-differences perspective

Michael Kane, Randall Engle (2002)

We provide an "executive-attention" framework for organizing the cognitive neuroscience research on the constructs of working-memory capacity (WMC), general fluid intelligence, and prefrontal cortex (PFC) function. Rather than provide a novel theory of PFC function, we synthesize a wealth of single-cell, brain-imaging, and neuropsychological research through the lens of our theory of normal individual differences in WMC and attention control (Engle, Kane, & Tuholski, 1999; Engle, Tuholski, Laughlin, & Conway, 1999). Our critical review confirms the prevalent view that dorsolateral PFC circuitry is critical to executive-attention functions. Moreover, although the dorsolateral PFC is but one critical structure in a network of anterior and posterior "attention control" areas, it does have a unique executive-attention role in actively maintaining access to stimulus representations and goals in interference-rich contexts. Our review suggests the utility of an executive-attention framework for guiding future research on both PFC function and cognitive control.

0 comments Cited 496 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Contributors

Holly Rayson

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Dev Cogn Neurosci

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Dev Cogn Neurosci

Title: Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

Publisher: Elsevier

ISSN (Print): 1878-9293

ISSN (Electronic): 1878-9307

Publication date PMC-release: 1 June 2019

Publication date (Print): June 2019

Volume: 37

Electronic Location Identifier: 100631

Affiliations

[a ]School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom

[b ]Institut des Sciences Cognitives - Marc Jeannerod, CNRS, Bron, France

[c ]Sobell Department for Motor Neuroscience and Movement Disorders, University College London, United Kingdom

[d ]Department of Psychology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

[e ]Department of Psychology, University of Cape Town, South Africa

Author notes

[* ]Corresponding author. Present address: Institut des Sciences Cognitives- Marc Jeannerod, CNRS, 67 Boulevard Pinel, 69675, Bron, France. holly.rayson@ 123456isc.cnrs.fr

Article

Publisher ID: S1878-9293(18)30173-7 Publisher ID: 100631

DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2019.100631

PMC ID: 6556871

PubMed ID: 30970289

SO-VID: f2d46a07-1879-44c5-b91b-67daa191765a

License:

This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

History

Date received : 24 July 2018

Date revision received : 24 December 2018

Date accepted : 3 March 2019

Comments

Comment on this article

scite_

Smart Citations

Citing PublicationsSupportingMentioningContrasting

View Citations

See how this article has been cited at scite.ai

scite shows how a scientific paper has been cited by providing the context of the citation, a classification describing whether it supports, mentions, or contrasts the cited claim, and a label indicating in which section the citation was made.

Building blocks of joint attention: Early sensitivity to having one’s own gaze followed

Read this article at

Abstract

Related collections

Hearing Loss and Restoration

Most cited references 84

EEG alpha and theta oscillations reflect cognitive and memory performance: a review and analysis.

Understanding and sharing intentions: the origins of cultural cognition.

The role of prefrontal cortex in working-memory capacity, executive attention, and general fluid intelligence: An individual-differences perspective

Author and article information

Contributors

Journal

Affiliations

Author notes

Article

History

Categories

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 44

Cited by 10

Most referenced authors 2,121