A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Early Responding to Joint Attention Skills

• In Event: Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Topic - Social Cognition

Abstract

Developing the ability to follow another person’s gaze or pointing is important for young infants and has been found to predict language development (e.g., Bottema-Beutel, 2016). Our current understanding of this ability (also known as ‘responding to joint attention; R-JA’) is largely based on studies conducted in controlled laboratory settings with infants from WEIRD populations (e.g., Morissette et al., 1995; Mundy et al., 2007). These controlled set-ups, however, do not necessarily reflect the way that adults naturally direct the attention of young infants in their everyday life. The present study therefore aimed to examine the R-JA abilities of infants in two different cultures using a more naturalistic set-up where mothers were asked to direct their infants’ attention to objects using whichever strategies they would normally use.

Fifty-three British and 45 Ugandan mother-infant dyads participated in an R-JA task in their own homes when the infants were 6, 10, and 12 months old. The task consisted of four trials: two where a toy was placed close (~50cm) to the infant’s left or right (proximal trials) and two where a toy was placed further away (~1.5-2m) to the infant’s left or right (distal trials). Mothers sat opposite their infants on the floor and did not receive any instructions on how to direct their attention, except for being asked not to touch the toys and to remain where they were sitting.

If children followed their mother’s attention directing attempts to correctly locate the toy on both sides, they passed that type of trial. Only children with two valid trials at each timepoint up to the age where they passed that condition were included in analysis.
This meant that our analysed sample for proximal trials included 36 British and 24 Ugandan infants, and for distal trials included 23 British and 20 Ugandan infants.

Preliminary analyses revealed that at 6m, 31% of British and 67% of Ugandan infants passed both their proximal trials. By 10m, 92% of British and 88% of Ugandan infants had passed and by 12m, 100% of British and 96% of Ugandan infants had passed. With regards to distal trials, at 6m, 9% of British and 40% of Ugandan infants passed. By 10m, 87% of British and 90% of Ugandan infants had passed both their distal trials and by 12m, 100% of British and 95% of Ugandan infants had passed. At 6m, significantly more Ugandan than British infants passed proximal trials (χ2(1) = 7.59, p = .008) and distal trials (χ2(1) = 5.87, p = .028), indicating that R-JA skills might develop earlier in Ugandan infants.

In order to investigate potential reasons for this cultural difference, we will present an analysis of the strategies British and Ugandan mothers used to direct their infants’ attention to the toys. Our results show that when in a familiar home environment, infants can follow the rich attention directing signals of their mothers to find their locus of attention at an early age and that this ability might emerge earlier in Ugandan than in British infants.

Authors

• Joanna Christiane Buryn-Weitzel, University of York
  Presenting Author

• Maisie Thurman, University of York
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ed Donnellan, University of Reading
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kirsty Emma Graham, University of York
  Non-Presenting Author

• Maegan Hoffman, University of York
  Non-Presenting Author

• Eve Holden, University of York
  Non-Presenting Author

• Michael Jurua, Budongo Field Station
  Non-Presenting Author

• Charlotte Victoria Knapper, University of York
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nicole Jasmine Lahiff, University of York
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sophie Marshall, University of York
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gideon Salter, University of St Andrews
  Non-Presenting Author

• Claudia Wilke, University of York
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katie Elizabeth Slocombe, University of York
  Non-Presenting Author