Central Bias in Social Attention: The Development of Gaze Distribution in the First Two Years

The present study characterized infants' free viewing during an interactive parent-infant object play by using a head-mounted eye-tracking method. We compare the infant's look to the parent's faces versus objects, which are optimal for information gathering from complex scenes in the real world. To assess the variabilities of gaze distribution, we estimated the degrees of gaze centralization and stabilization in relation to the center of the egocentric scenes amongst infants at 6, 12, and 18 months of age. Gaze centralization on face looking was found to be established at six months of age, while the distribution of infant object looking varies across ages. Furthermore, infants maintained longer attention when their gaze was clustered closer to the center of the scenes, regardless of the attention types. These findings highlight the role of everyday visual experiences in the foundation of attention focus and emphasize the tight visual-motor coordination during object exploration.