Joint attention
Joint attention or shared attention is the shared focus of two individuals on an object. It is achieved when one individual alerts another to an object by means of eye-gazing, pointing or other verbal or non-verbal indications. An individual gazes at another individual, points to an object and then returns their gaze to the individual. Scaife and Bruner were the first researchers to present a cross-sectional description of children's ability to follow eye gaze in 1975. They found that most eight- to ten-month-old children followed a line of regard, and that all 11- to 14-month-old children did so. This early research showed it was possible for an adult to bring certain objects in the environment to an infant's attention using eye gaze.
Subsequent research demonstrates that two important skills in joint attention are following eye gaze and identifying intention. The ability to share gaze with another individual is an important skill in establishing reference. The ability to identify intention is important in a child's ability to learn language and direct the attention of others. Joint attention is important for many aspects of language development including comprehension, production and word learning. Episodes of joint attention provide children with information about their environment, allowing individuals to establish reference from spoken language and learn words. Socio-emotional development and the ability to take part in normal relationships are also influenced by joint attention abilities. The ability to establish joint attention may be negatively affected by deafness, blindness, and developmental disorders such as autism.
Other animals such as great apes, dogs, and horses also show some elements of joint attention.
Humans
Levels of joint attention
Defining levels of joint attention is important in determining if children are engaging in age-appropriate joint attention. There are three levels of joint attention: triadic, dyadic, and shared gaze.Triadic joint attention is the highest level of joint attention and involves two individuals looking at an object. Each individual must understand that the other individual is looking at the same object and realize that there is an element of shared attention. For an instance of social engagement to count as triadic joint attention it requires at least two individuals attending to an object or focusing their attention on each other. Additionally, the individual must display awareness that focus is shared between himself or herself and another individual. Triadic attention is marked by the individual looking back to the other individual after looking at the object.
Dyadic joint attention is a conversation-like behavior that individuals engage in. This is especially true for human adults and infants, who engage in this behavior starting at two months of age. Adults and infants take turns exchanging facial expressions, noises, and in the case of the adult, speech. Sensitivity to dyadic orientation plays a major role in the development of dyadic attention. Infants must be able to correctly orient towards in response to the attention seeking interaction.
Shared gaze occurs when two individuals are simply looking at an object. Shared gaze is the lowest level of joint attention. Evidence has demonstrated the adaptive value of shared gaze; it allows quicker completion of various group effort related tasks It is likely an important evolved trait allowing for individuals to communicate in simple and directed manner. It has been argued that shared gaze is one of the main precursors to theory of mind.
Individuals who engage in triadic joint attention must understand both gaze and intention to establish common reference. Gaze refers to a child's understanding of the link between mental activity and the physical act of seeing. Intention refers to the child's ability to understand the goal of another person's mental processes.
Gaze
For an individual to engage in joint attention they must establish reference. Following the gaze or directive actions of others is a common way of establishing reference. For an individual to understand that following gaze establishes reference the individual must display:- Recognition that looking is intentional behavior directed to external objects and events. Following gaze serves the purpose of establishing reference.
- An understanding that looking results in the mental experience of seeing an object or event.
- Recognition that eyes are responsible for seeing.
- Recognition that others share in the capacity to see things.
- An understanding that voice direction helps determine whether the speaker is talking to them and what he or she is referring to or focused on.
Intention
The ability to identify intention is critical to joint attention. When individuals understand that others have goals, intentions, and attentional states, they are able to enter into and direct another's attention. Joint attention promotes and maintains dyadic exchanges and learning about the nature of social partners. The ability to engage in joint attention is crucial for language development.Individuals who are intentional in their actions display regularity in their behavior. Individuals locate objects with their eyes, move towards the object, and then use hands to make contact with and manipulate the object. Change in gaze direction is one of several behavioral cues that individuals use in combination with changes in facial and vocal displays and body posture to mark the intention to act on an object. Individuals who seek or follow a joint focus of attention display knowledge that what is in their awareness is also in another's awareness. They believe that they are experiencing the same world as others.
Joint attention plays an important role in the development of theory of mind. Theory of mind and joint attention are important precursors to a fully developed grasp of another individual's mental activity. While joint attention is theorized to be an important precursor to theory of mind, some evidence suggests that individuals engage in these tasks separately. One lab tested the co-occurrence of these behavior in social settings and found that there was not significant overlap. This is not to suggest that there is no relationship, but that the two are distinct constructs that must be measured independently.
However, the development of joint attention and theory of mind is not confined to early childhood but continues to be refined throughout the lifespan. The interpretation of an intentional cue such as pointing is dynamically modulated by social and spatial context. Gaze alternation between partner and object, while pointing benefit the ability to locate an object, while absent-mind gaze makes learning an location more challenging. This highlights the importance of communicative cues in modulating joint attention. One lab had adults primed by a cooperative or competitive cue, and either in an addressed or witnessed an interaction. In cooperative cues, participants processed cues differently depending on whether the cue is directed at them or another person, indicating that joint attention is not a reflexive response but an active process of interpreting another's intent based on the immediate social and spatial cues.
Language comprehension
The ability of children to extract information from their environment rests on understandings of attentional behaviors such as pointing. Episodes of joint attention provide children with a great deal of information about objects by establishing reference and intention. Joint attention occurs within particular environments. The items and events in that environment provide a context that enables the child to associate meaning with a particular utterance. Joint attention makes relevant aspects of the context salient, helping children comprehend what is taking place. Recent work also links factors involved in the mental representation of language and intentional states, including word knowledge and joint attention, with degree of executive functioning. Researchers found that increases in these kinds of representational abilities at 14 months predicted an increase in success on executive functioning tasks at 18 months. This finding suggests that these abilities are important building blocks for elements of executive functions.Language production
An infant's social environment relates to his or her later language development. Children's first words are closely linked to their early language experience. For children with typically developing language skills, there is a close match between maternal speech and their environment: up to 78% of maternal speech is matched to the object the child is focusing on. In children with delayed language development, only 50% of maternal speech is matched to the object the infant is focusing on. Infants are more likely to engage in joint attention when the parent talks about an object that the child is attending to as opposed to an object outside of the infant's attention. This increased level of joint attention aids in encouraging normal language development, including word comprehension and production. When joint attention is present, it plays an important role in word learning, a crucial aspect of language development.Some recent evidence suggests that though important for speech production, joint attention is not necessary or sufficient for vocabulary production. Individuals on the autism spectrum as well as individuals with Williams syndrome have demonstrated the ability to learn new vocabulary in the absence of joint attention. Additionally, individuals with Down Syndrome often show joint attentional abilities without the expected vocabulary. This demonstrates the plasticity associated with language learning.