Preference for Dynamic Human Images and Gaze‐Following Abilities in Preterm Infants at 6 and 12 Months of Age: An Eye‐Tracking Study

Abstract

Preterm children are reported to be at higher risk of social communication problems such as autism spectrum disorder compared with full-term infants. Although previous studies have suggested that preference for social stimuli in infancy is a possible indicator of later social communication development, little is known about this relation in preterm infants. We examined the gaze behavior of low-risk preterm and full-term infants at 6 and 12 months' corrected ages using two types of eye-tracking tasks, which measured 1) preference for social stimuli by biological motion and human geometric preference and 2) ability to follow another's gaze direction. We found that preterm (compared with full-term) infants at both 6 and 12 months of age spent less time looking toward dynamic human images, followed another's gaze less frequently, and looked for a shorter time at an object cued by another. Moreover, we found a positive correlation between looking time toward dynamic human images and frequency of gaze following at 12 months of age in full-term, Correspondence should be sent to Masako Myowa-Yamakoshi,

The Developmental Origins of Gaze‐Following in Human Infants

“…To date, investigations of the influence of individual characteristics on GF have not been systematic, and few and largely unreplicated studies are available. Such studies report that enhanced GF is associated with a visual preference for humans (as opposed to geometric patterns; Imafuku et al., ), parental reports of high sociability (Striano & Rochat, ), and sustained focus of attention in everyday situations at 6 months of age (Morales, Mundy, Delgado, Yale, Neal, et al., ); however, an abbreviated focus of attention is associated with more frequent GF in novel situations at 11 (Todd & Dixon, ). In addition, low levels of negative affect (e.g., fear and frustration; Salley & Dixon, ) and surgency (e.g., perceptual sensitivity; Todd & Dixon, ) are positively associated with enhanced GF.…”

Human and monkey infant attention to dynamic social and nonsocial stimuli

“…Individual differences in early social attention have important implications for development, with higher levels of social attention generally predicting more advanced social development. In humans, social attention in infancy is positively associated with later attachment security (Peltola, Forssman, Puura, van IJzendoorn, & Leppänen, 2015), joint attention (Schietecatte, Roeyers, & Warreyn, 2012), gaze following (Imafuku et al., 2017), theory of mind (Wellman, Phillips, Dunphy‐Lelii, & LaLonde, 2004; Yamaguchi, Kuhlmeier, Wynn, & VanMarle, 2009), and language development (Tenenbaum, Sobel, Sheinkopf, Malle, & Morgan, 2015) in toddlers and preschoolers. These individual differences in social attention appear early.…”

Visual attention control differences in 12-month-old preterm infants

“…However, despite evidence for early attentional delays predicting later executive outcomes, there has been a lack of focus on early emerging markers of executive domains in preterm infants and there have been no eye-tracking studies that have attempted to address this. This is in contrast to the investigation of social attention in preterm infants, which has been more widely investigated using eye-tracking methodology (Imafuku et al, 2017;Peña, Arias, & Dehaene-Lambertz, 2014).…”