The slow emergence of gaze- and point-following: A longitudinal study of infants from 4 to 12 months.

Acquisition of visual attention-following skills, notably gaze- and point-following, contributes to infants' ability to share attention with caregivers, which in turn contributes to social learning and communication. However, the development of gaze- and point-following in the first 18 months remains controversial, in part because of different testing protocols and standards. To address this, we longitudinally tested N = 43 low-risk, North American middle-class infants' tendency to follow gaze direction, pointing gestures, and gaze-and-point combinations. Infants were tested monthly from 4 to 12 months of age. To control motivational differences, infants were taught to expect contingent reward videos in the target locations. No-cue trials were included to estimate spontaneous target fixation rates. A comparison sample (N = 23) was tested at 9 and 12 months to estimate practice effects. Results showed gradual increases in both gaze- and point-following starting around 7 months, and modest month-to-month individual stability from 8 to 12 months. However, attention-following did not exceed chance levels until after 6 months. Infants rarely followed cues to locations behind them, even at 12 months. Infants followed combined gaze-and-point cues more than gaze alone, and followed points at intermediate levels (not reliably different from the other cues). The comparison group's results showed that practice effects did not explain the age-related increase in attention-following. The results corroborate and extend previous findings that North American middle-class infants' attention-following in controlled laboratory settings increases slowly and incrementally between 6 and 12 months of age. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: A longitudinal experimental study documented the emergence and developmental trajectories of North American middle-class infants' visual attention-following skills, including gaze-following, point-following, and gaze-and-point-following. A new paradigm controlled for factors including motivation, attentiveness, and visual-search baserates. Motor development was ruled out as a predictor or limiter of the emergence of attention-following. Infants did not follow attention reliably until after 6 months, and following increased slowly from 7 to 12 months. Infants' individual trajectories showed modest month-to-month stability from 8 to 12 months of age.