Action prediction in infants is not based on gaze cues: an eye tracking study

Abstract

To investigate whether infants are able to use an adult's gaze shift towards an object to predict his/her upcoming action, an eye tracking study was performed in 39 infants between 12 and 24 months of age. Infants saw a video clip of a model who was sitting at a table with two bowls in front of her. In the beginning of the clip the model's eyes were oriented towards the table and after approximately one second she looked right into the camera (baseline phase). Next, she shifted her gaze towards one out of the two bowls (gaze direction phase). Finally, infants saw the model who was holding a ball right in front of the bowls (test phase). We predicted that infants will follow the adult's gaze shift and will look at the cued bowl in both the gaze direction and test phase. To analyze the eye tracking data, areas of interest (AOI's) were created around the model's face, the two bowls and the ball. Two measures were obtained: the first gaze shift and looking duration towards one of the AOI's. Results show that infants look more often and longer towards the cued bowl in the gaze direction phase. In contrast they did not show this behaviour in the test phase. These findings suggest that, although infants follow the adult's gaze towards an object, they do not use this information to predict the adult's upcoming action. An explanation might be that infants need additional cues to predict observed actions. Key words: Infants, eye tracking, gaze following, action prediction.