Multimodal Maternal Input: Exploring the Dynamics of Joint Attention in Naturalistic Infant-Caregiver Interactions

Coordinating attention provides opportunities for social and language learning during infancy and beyond. Care- givers can scaffold attention-sharing with infants by producing multimodal referential cues (e.g., gaze shifts, pointing gestures, speech). Whereas previous research has mainly investigated caregivers' cues that can elicit joint attention in controlled laboratory settings, less is known about the content and context of caregiver cues to initiate or maintain infants' joint attention within naturalistic settings. To contribute to a fuller description of caregivers' attention cues and cue combinations, and when infants follow attention in response, we examined dyadic interactions in three temporal windows - before, during, and after the onset of caregivers' bids to elicit infants' joint attention. We recorded and analyzed video of forty-three caregiver-infant dyads during a joint attention eliciting task at home, monthly from 6 to 9 months. We focused on coding maternal behavioral cues including gaze shifts, pointing gesture, and verbalizations, and on changes in infants' visual attention. Our findings affirm the multifaceted nature of maternal input: mothers often used a combination of gaze, pointing, and verbalization to engage infants' attention before, during, and after the onset of attention-sharing. Pointing gestures were more effective than gaze in directing infants' attention.