Adult's eyes trigger shifts of visual attention in human infants

Two experiments examined whether infants shift their visual attention in th e direction toward which an adult's eyes turn. A computerized modification of previous joint-attention paradigms revealed that infants as young as 3 m onths attend in the same direction as the eyes of a digitized adult face. T his attention shift was indicated by the latency and direction of their ori enting to peripheral probes presented after the face was extinguished A sec ond experiment found a similar influence of direction of perceived gaze, bu t also that less peripheral orienting occurred if the central face remained visible during presentation of the probe. This may explain why attention s hifts triggered by gaze perception have been difficult to observe in infant s using previous naturalistic procedures. Our new method reveals both that direction of perceived gaze can be discriminated by young infants and that this perception triggers corresponding shifts of their own attention.