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<p>Infants’ tendency to focus on socially relevant cues is commonly referred to as ‘social attention’ and is often conceptualized as a unified construct. However, few studies have examined the concordance among measures that fall under this label. In this study, we assessed 50 ten-month-old infants using three common measures of social visual attention: eye (versus mouth) preference, gaze following, and face preference (versus non-social objects). We also examined their association with concurrent parent-rated socio-communicative abilities. No significant associations were found among the gaze measures. Notably, only eye preference was uniquely associated with communicative abilities (β = 0.364, <i>p</i> = 0.018), while the other gaze measure showed no such relationship. These findings suggest that what is commonly referred to as ‘social attention’ reflects a set of functionally distinct and seemingly unrelated behaviors, highlighting the need to re-evaluate its conceptualization as a unified construct in early development.</p>

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Lack of concordance among infant social attention measures

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年1月20日

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  • Charlotte Viktorsson,
  • Kim Astor

摘要

Infants’ tendency to focus on socially relevant cues is commonly referred to as ‘social attention’ and is often conceptualized as a unified construct. However, few studies have examined the concordance among measures that fall under this label. In this study, we assessed 50 ten-month-old infants using three common measures of social visual attention: eye (versus mouth) preference, gaze following, and face preference (versus non-social objects). We also examined their association with concurrent parent-rated socio-communicative abilities. No significant associations were found among the gaze measures. Notably, only eye preference was uniquely associated with communicative abilities (β = 0.364, p = 0.018), while the other gaze measure showed no such relationship. These findings suggest that what is commonly referred to as ‘social attention’ reflects a set of functionally distinct and seemingly unrelated behaviors, highlighting the need to re-evaluate its conceptualization as a unified construct in early development.