Originally published November 27 2005
Study explains how infants begin to visually search for language
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Psychologists from the University of Washington have produced a study that highlights the role infants' eye movement plays in their development of language abilities.
University of Washington psychologists Rechele Brooks and Andrew Meltzoff have pinpointed this developmental step as beginning somewhere in the 10th or 11th month of life, and have found that infants who are advanced in gaze-following behavior before their first birthday understand nearly twice as many words when they are 18 months old.
Writing in the current issue of the journal Developmental Science, Brooks and Meltzoff provide further evidence for the importance of eyes in human social interactions and trace how gaze-following develops in infants.
"Our work shows that babies can look where an adult is looking but that it isn't easy, particularly at home where there are a lot of distractions," said Brooks, who is a research associate at the UW's Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences.
"We have found that at 9 months babies are beginning to do this by following the movement of the head.
Psychologist have known for some time that among adults detecting the direction of another's glance is a crucial component of human social interaction.
"This line of research is important because following another person's line of sight is crucial for understanding the emotions of other people and, as we are now showing, learning about language," said Meltzoff, who is co-director of the institute and a professor of psychology.
Equal numbers of boys and girls in each age group were randomly assigned to eyes open or shut conditions.
The researcher played with an infant before placing two identical toys on pedestals to the left and right of the table.
In the trials the researcher made eye contact with the infant before silently turning her head toward either the toy on the left or the one on the right.
They are using social information to pick out what we are focusing on.
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