INFANT SENSITIVITY TO ADULT EYE DIRECTION

Adult eye direction was manipulated while adults interacted with 3-6-m onth-olds over closed-circuit television (Experiment 1) or in person ( Experiment 2). Infants received 4 1-min interaction periods. Fbr exper imental groups, adult eye contact was maintained during Periods 1 and 3, and averted during Periods 2 and 4 (by viewing infants on a televis ion monitor to maintain contingency). Control infants received eye con tact during all periods. Experimental infants' smiling declined whenev er adults looked away; their visual attention simply decreased across periods. Control infants showed little change in gaze or smiling acros s periods. The implications of these results for Baron-Cohen's model o f infant theory of mind and Morton and Johnson's e-process theory of i nfant face perception are discussed.