Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/35079

JaLCDOI : 10.14943/b.edu.106.135

KEYWORDS : gaze;joint visual attention;caregiver's supportive behaviors

Recent studies have suggested reflexive attention shift as evidence for the sensitivity to other's gaze, and that this was found to have a base in the cerebral cortex. On the other hand, several studies have also suggested that the mechanism for processing information concerning other's eyes is not innate but is gradually modularized in the process of ontogeny. In this study we focused on some specific behaviors of the caregiver in leading the attention of her infant toward achieving the state of joint attention with her, and we assumed that such caregiver's behaviors promoted the infant's understanding of gaze. Our results suggested that the utterances and actions of the caregiver tended to result in joint visual attention in the dyad through the following processes: (1) bringing about the situation in which an object and mother's face came closers patially, and (2) prompting the infant to concentrate and to work on the object in question, at the same time generating coordinating gazes between the mother and the object.