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Social and emotional contexts predict the development of gaze following in early infancy: A SOCIAL-FIRST ACCOUNT of GAZE FOLLOWING

  • Kim Astor*
  • , Marcus Lindskog
  • , Linda Forssman
  • , Ben Kenward
  • , Mari Fransson
  • , Alkistis Skalkidou
  • , Anne Tharner
  • , Juliëtte Cassé
  • , Gustaf Gredebäck
  • *Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

The development of gaze following begins in early infancy and its developmental foundation has been under heavy debate. Using a longitudinal design (N = 118), we demonstrate that attachment quality predicts individual differences in the onset of gaze following, at six months of age, and that maternal postpartum depression predicts later gaze following, at 10 months. In addition, we report longitudinal stability in gaze following from 6 to 10 months. A full path model (using attachment, maternal depression and gaze following at six months) accounted for 21% of variance in gaze following at 10 months. These results suggest an experience-dependent development of gaze following, driven by the infant's own motivation to interact and engage with others (the social-first perspective).

Original languageEnglish
Article number1178
Pages (from-to)1-11
Number of pages11
JournalRoyal Society Open Science
Volume7
Issue number9
Early online date16 Sept 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2020

Funding

Ethics. The study was approved by the local ethics review committee (EPN) in Uppsala, Sweden (permit number 2013/ 423), and conducted in compliance with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration. Participating families provided written consent (from all legal parents) prior to the start of the study and at each subsequent visit. The study did not use animal subjects or tissues. Data accessibility. The eye-tracking workflow together with the data matrix used in the analysis is openly available from Dryad https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.v41ns1rs5 [81]. Because of local university policy and GDPR, videos and other sensitive material will not be shared. Authors’ contributions. K.A.: drafting the article, conception and design, data analysis and interpretation, final approval of the version to be published. M.L.: data collection, designed the longitudinal study, critical revision of the article, data analysis and interpretation, final approval of the version to be published. L.F.: data collection, critical revision of the article, final approval of the version to be published. B.K.: data collection, critical revision of the article, final approval of the version to be published. M.F.: data collection, critical revision of the article, final approval of the version to be published. Competing interests. The authors declare that the study was conducted in the absence of any conflicting interests. Funding. The BASICchild project was funded by the following grants: Gustaf Gredebäck (Wallenberg Fellowship: KAW 2012.0120) and Marcus Lindskog (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond: P15-0430:1). Acknowledgements. We thank all families that participated and colleagues that have worked with the BASIC project. We also thank everyone who contributed with valuable feedback on the manuscript.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

  1. SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
    SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being

Keywords

  • attachment
  • gaze following
  • infant
  • longitudinal
  • maternal postpartum depression
  • social context

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