Asymmetry in infants' selective attention to facial features during visual processing of infant-directed speech.
Front Psychol 2013;
4:601. [PMID:
24062705 PMCID:
PMC3769626 DOI:
10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00601]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/07/2013] [Accepted: 08/19/2013] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Two experiments used eye tracking to examine how infant and adult observers distribute their eye gaze on videos of a mother producing infant- and adult-directed speech. Both groups showed greater attention to the eyes than to the nose and mouth, as well as an asymmetrical focus on the talker's right eye for infant-directed speech stimuli. Observers continued to look more at the talker's apparent right eye when the video stimuli were mirror flipped, suggesting that the asymmetry reflects a perceptual processing bias rather than a stimulus artifact, which may be related to cerebral lateralization of emotion processing.
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