Infant and adult visual attention during an imitation demonstration

Abstract

Deferred imitation tasks have shown that manipulations at encoding can enhance infant learning and memory performance within an age, suggesting that brain maturation alone cannot fully account for all developmental changes in early memory abilities. The present study investigated whether changes in the focus of attention during learning might contribute to improving memory abilities during infancy. Infants aged 6, 9, and 12 months, and an adult comparison group, watched a video of a puppet imitation demonstration while visual behavior was recorded on an eye tracker. Overall, infants spent less time attending to the video than adults, and distributed their gaze more equally across the demonstrator and puppet stimulus. In contrast, adults directed their gaze primarily to the puppet. When infants were tested for their behavioral recall of the target actions, “imitators” were shown to have increased attention to the person and decreased attention to the background compared to “non-imitators.” These results suggest that attention during learning is related to memory outcome and that changes in attention may be one mechanism by which manipulations to the learning event may enhance infant recall memory. © 2013 The Authors. Developmental Psychobiology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Video Deficit in Toddlers’ Object Retrieval: What Eye Movements Reveal About Online Cognition

“…Also of interest was the relation between visual selection during hiding events and subsequent search performance. In earlier research, 6‐ to 12‐month‐olds who imitated an onscreen model had spent more time looking at the model during the demonstration, relative to those who did not imitate (Taylor & Herbert, ). Similarly, if 5.5‐ to 6.5‐year‐olds attended to the most important object on screen during a demonstration, they were more likely to successfully transfer a solution from video to a real‐life problem (Hodapp, ).…”

“…Infants may learn more from video when they selectively attend to target information. For example, 6‐ to 12‐month‐olds who paid relatively more attention to an on‐screen actor than to the background were more likely to imitate that actor's behavior immediately following the demonstration (Taylor & Herbert, ). However, this relation between selective attention and imitation was not found in another study using a similar approach (Taylor & Herbert, ).…”

“…Researchers have yet to compare toddlers’ eye movements when watching the same events on video versus in person, particularly as related to subsequent learning. Moreover, while toddlers (15–30 months) are likely to exhibit a video deficit for learning (Barr, ), most eye‐tracking studies that use video stimuli are limited to younger infants and adults (e.g., Frank et al., ; Kirkorian et al., ; Mital, Smith, Hill, & Henderson, ; Taylor & Herbert, , ; Wass & Smith, ). Thus, it remains unclear whether the video deficit is at least partly the result of differences in online processing during knowledge acquisition when viewing video versus in‐person events.…”

Empty Looks or Paying Attention? Exploring Infants' Visual Behavior during Encoding of an Elicited Imitation Task

“…Another study supporting the claim that looking time during encoding is related to later imitation was conducted by Taylor and Herbert (). They eye‐tracked a group of 6‐, 9‐, and 12‐month‐old infants as well as an adult comparison group while the participants watched a videotaped deferred imitation task involving an experimenter modeling actions with a puppet.…”

“…They eye‐tracked a group of 6‐, 9‐, and 12‐month‐old infants as well as an adult comparison group while the participants watched a videotaped deferred imitation task involving an experimenter modeling actions with a puppet. More specifically, Taylor and Herbert () focused on fixation duration at three different areas of interest: puppet, person, and background. The results revealed that there were significant differences in the looking time scores provided by the adult group compared to the infants.…”