In gesture studies, one of the still controversial topics is the onset of gesture comprehension. Previous studies have determined such understanding to arise between 9 and 15 months of age. Our study examined whether the elimination of the difficulty of disengaging fixation from salient central stimuli like the one of the human hand would allow young infants to shift visual attention in the direction of pointing. For this purpose, we studied infants at the age of 4.6 and 6.5 months. Our results suggest that a dynamic pointing gesture triggers shifts of visual attention in infants as young as 4.5 months of age. Our control experiments provide data showing that at 6.5 months of age, infants are likely to follow the directionality of a dynamic pointing rather then just a hand motion suggesting that at this age, the pointing gesture is becoming meaningful.
Colaborators: Bennett I. Bertenthal (University of Chicago), Matthew Longo (University College London).
Rohlfing, K.J. / Longo, M.R. / Bertenthal, B.I. (2004): Pointing. Does Gesture Trigger Shifts of Visual Attention in Human Infants? Poster presented at 14th Biennial International Conference on Infant Studies, Chicago, Illinois 5 - 8 May 2004.
23.11.2006