Eye gaze is an important communicative signal, both as mutual eye contact and as referential gaze to objects. To examine whether attention to speech versus nonspeech stimuli in 4- to 5-month-olds (n=15) varies as a function of eye gaze, event-related brain potentials were used. Faces with mutual or averted gaze were presented in combination with forward- or backward-spoken words. Infants rapidly processed gaze and spoken words in combination. A late Slow Wave suggests an interaction of the 2 factors, separating backward-spoken word+direct gaze from all other conditions. An additional experiment (n=15) extended the results to referential gaze. The current findings suggest that interactions between visual and auditory cues are present early in infancy. © 2011 The Authors. Child Development © 2011 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.
Influence of Eye Gaze on Spoken Word Processing: An ERP Study With Infants / Parise, E.; Handl, A.; Palumbo, L.; Friederici, A. D.. - In: CHILD DEVELOPMENT. - ISSN 0009-3920. - 82:3(2011), pp. 842-853. [10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01573.x]
Influence of Eye Gaze on Spoken Word Processing: An ERP Study With Infants
Parise E.
Primo
;
2011-01-01
Abstract
Eye gaze is an important communicative signal, both as mutual eye contact and as referential gaze to objects. To examine whether attention to speech versus nonspeech stimuli in 4- to 5-month-olds (n=15) varies as a function of eye gaze, event-related brain potentials were used. Faces with mutual or averted gaze were presented in combination with forward- or backward-spoken words. Infants rapidly processed gaze and spoken words in combination. A late Slow Wave suggests an interaction of the 2 factors, separating backward-spoken word+direct gaze from all other conditions. An additional experiment (n=15) extended the results to referential gaze. The current findings suggest that interactions between visual and auditory cues are present early in infancy. © 2011 The Authors. Child Development © 2011 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione
