Visual attention and distractability in 3-to 5-month-old infants

Development Of sensitivity to distractors is explored in 3- to 5-month-old infants. A peripheral distractor was presented when infants sustained atten tion on a central stimulus for 4 seconds, and both targets remained present for 10 seconds. A session involved 5 trials, with the central stimulus cha nging from trial to trial, while the distractor remained the same. Moreover , infants were observed in an habituation situation. Two hypotheses were st udied :first, as 3 months is a transition point concerning the development of the oculomotor system, important interindividual differences are expecte d. Second, such problems no longer occur in 5-month-old infants, thus no li nks between ages are expected, whereas habituation with trials should be ob served. For 3-month-old infants, long latences were observed, which may cor respond to difficulties in disengaging fixations. Two months later such lon g latencies were rare, and no individual stability was observed. Moreover h abituation to the distractor appeared only in 5-month olds. Finally, correl ations between, fixation durations in both situations, distractor and habit uation, were significant in 3-month olds. Results are discussed in relation to Colombo's, Richards's and Ruff s data.