The visual world is cluttered with many targets and many distractions. Learning requires selecting and stabilizing attention on just some of that information. The proposed research examines the idea that for toddlers, effective visual attention is fundamentally a sensory-motor process involving external bodily actions. The proposed research addresses a gap in current understanding of how sensory- motor behavior supports effective visual attention, a critical gap given the evidence implicating atypical attention in many developmental disorders and the well established co-morbidity of atypical sensory-motor patterns in these same developmental disorders The proposed experiments measure multiple sensory and motor streams: head and hand movements, eye-gaze direction, and the first- person head-centered view as 12 to 24 month old children act on and learn about objects. The studies will provide a fine-grained description of the dynamics of visual attention, of how children's own actions help to sustain and stabilize visual attention, and the role of these processes in learning about objects.

Public Health Relevance

The co-morbidity of motor and cognitive disorders and the link between of excessive movement and poor attentional control are well-known but not well- understood. This research -by linking attention to early sensory-motor coordination - may provide a breakthrough domain for understanding the developmental dependencies between sensory-motor processes and early cognitive development, for early diagnosis, and for early intervention.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Exploratory/Developmental Grants (R21)
Project #
5R21HD068475-02
Application #
8410528
Study Section
Cognition and Perception Study Section (CP)
Program Officer
Griffin, James
Project Start
2012-01-08
Project End
2013-12-31
Budget Start
2013-01-01
Budget End
2013-12-31
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2013
Total Cost
$182,683
Indirect Cost
$64,058
Name
Indiana University Bloomington
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
006046700
City
Bloomington
State
IN
Country
United States
Zip Code
47401
Fausey, Caitlin M; Jayaraman, Swapnaa; Smith, Linda B (2016) From faces to hands: Changing visual input in the first two years. Cognition 152:101-107
Morse, Anthony F; Benitez, Viridian L; Belpaeme, Tony et al. (2015) Posture affects how robots and infants map words to objects. PLoS One 10:e0116012
Smith, Linda; Yu, Chen; Yoshida, Hanako et al. (2015) Contributions of head-mounted cameras to studying the visual environments of infants and young children. J Cogn Dev 16:407-419
Pereira, Alfredo F; Smith, Linda B; Yu, Chen (2014) A bottom-up view of toddler word learning. Psychon Bull Rev 21:178-85
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Yu, Chen; Smith, Linda B (2012) Embodied attention and word learning by toddlers. Cognition 125:244-62
Benitez, Viridiana L; Smith, Linda B (2012) Predictable locations aid early object name learning. Cognition 125:339-52
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