Distractor Context Drives Differential Attention Orienting and Attention Holding to Caregiver and Stranger Faces in Infancy

• In Event: Poster Session 05
  In Poster Session: PS 05 Topic - Attention, Learning, Memory

Abstract

Infants attend to caregivers and other social partners to gather information for learning. This information gathering is supported by both attention orienting, in which a target is selected from competing stimuli, and attention-holding, in which attention is maintained on a stimulus for detailed processing (Cohen, 1972). Infants show preferential looking (attention holding) to caregivers (e.g., Barrera & Maurer, 1981) and reliably orient to a single unfamiliar face appearing in multi-object arrays by 6 months (Kwon et al., 2016). However, because this previous work used unfamiliar faces it is unknown whether infants show similar orienting biases to caregiver faces. We thus examined infants’ attention orienting and attention holding to caregiver and stranger faces appearing in multi-object search arrays. We developed a task that included single target trials, in which only the caregiver or stranger face appeared among multiple distractors, as well as dual target trials in which both faces appeared simultaneously.

Method
We recorded eye movements from twenty-four 6- and 9-month-old infants (anticipated N=50) as they viewed caregiver and stranger faces appearing in multi-item search arrays (Fig. 1). During single target trials infants saw either the caregiver or stranger face and multiple non-social distractor objects. Dual target trials were identical except that the caregiver and stranger faces appeared simultaneously. All search arrays remained visible for 4 s and infants completed six trials in each condition. We measured speed of attention orienting (i.e., eye movement RT) and attention holding (i.e., duration of looking) to the caregiver and stranger’s faces.

Results
Preliminary results indicated that infants’ attention orienting and attention holding differed by trial type (i.e., single versus dual target trials) and age. Six-month-old infants showed no difference in attention orienting or attention holding to caregivers and strangers across trial types (p’s >.50). Nine-month-old infants showed no difference in orienting during single target trials (p >.50; Fig. 2A) but were faster to orient to strangers during dual target trials (MDual,Caregiver =1525.21 ms, SD= 699.48; MDual,Stranger=733.80 ms, SD=453.32; p=0.01; Fig. 2B). Nine-month-old infants spent more time looking at caregiver faces during single target trials (MSingle,Caregiver= 611.61 ms, SD= 662.21; MSingle,Stranger=1037.96 ms, SD= 586.45; p = .02; Fig. 2C) but showed no difference in looking time during dual target trials (p >.50; Fig. 2D).


Discussion
Previous studies have found that attention holding biases to caregivers emerge early in infancy when few competing stimuli are present (e.g., Barrera & Maurer, 1981). However, our findings suggest that caregiver attention orienting and attention holding biases may emerge more slowly over the first year when multiple competing stimuli are present. These attention biases among older infants may reflect increased control over attention that allowed them to resolve competition among multiple competing stimuli. These effects were also dependent on distractor context. Overall, results suggest that infants may be more likely to show biased attention orienting when multiple faces compete for selective attention, whereas attention holding biases may be more likely when faces appear without competing face distractors.

Authors

• Brianna Hunter, University of California - Davis
  Presenting Author

• Julie Markant, Tulane University
  Non-Presenting Author