Joint attention and perceptual experience

Joint attention customarily refers to the coordinated focus of attention between two or more individuals on a common object or event, where it is mutually “open” to all attenders that they are so engaged. We identify two broad approaches to analyse joint attention, one in terms of cognitive notions like common knowledge and common awareness, and one according to which joint attention is fundamentally a primitive phenomenon of sensory experience. John Campbell’s relational theory is a prominent representative of the latter approach, and the main focus of this paper. We argue that Campbell’s theory is problematic for a variety of reasons, through which runs a common thread: most of the problems that the theory is faced with arise from the relational view of perception that he endorses, and, more generally, they suggest that perceptual experience is not sufficient for an analysis of joint attention

The use of joint attention in the naturalistic setting in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

This study investigates the deficits in the quantity and quality of joint attention in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). To obtain a holistic measure of joint attention, the following four aspects were considered: a) the quantity of Initiation Joint Attention (IJA) and Response Joint Attention (RJA), b) non-verbal behaviours which were atypically used during joint attention, c) the quality of joint attention and d) the association between quality and quantity of joint attention in children with ASD. These aspects were measured in three children with ASD and three typically-developing children (TDC). Measures were derived from 30-minute video recordings of a play session between each child and his/her caregiver and compared. This study established that there was a statistically significant difference in the quantity of joint attention in both IJA and RJA. The difference in the quality of joint attention was not statistically significant. However, when analysing children with ASD individually, a deficit in the quality of joint attention was identified in two of the three subjects. Compared to TDC, children with ASD engaged significantly less in IJA through manipulation of objects and eye-gaze and significantly more in IJA and RJA through challenging behaviour. In addition, there was no association between the deficits in quality and quantity of joint attention within individuals with ASD, as the three subjects portrayed diverse profiles. Children with ASD exhibited atypical joint attention skills when compared to the control group. Moreover, the frequency of initiations of joint attention bids was the most negatively affected aspect in children with ASD. Quality of joint attention is rarely researched and to the researchers’ knowledge, no other study has measured both quality and quantity of joint attention in children with ASDpeer-reviewe

Exploring the nature of joint attention impairments in young children with autism spectrum disorder: associated social and cognitive skills

It is generally accepted that joint attention skills are impaired in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In this study, social preference, attention disengagement and intention understanding, assumed to be associated with the development of joint attention, are explored in relation to joint attention skills in children with ASD at the age of 36 months. Response to joint attention was related to intention understanding, whereas the number of joint attention initiations was associated with attention disengagement, and somewhat less stronger with social preference. The level on which children initiated joint attention was related to social preference. Possible interpretations of these findings are discussed

How does an infant acquire the ability of joint attention?: A Constructive Approach

This study argues how a human infant acquires the ability of joint attention through interactions with its caregiver from the viewpoint of a constructive approach. This paper presents a constructive model by which a robot acquires a sensorimotor coordination for joint attention based on visual attention and learning with self-evaluation. Since visual attention does not always correspond to joint attention, the robot may have incorrect learning situations for joint attention as well as correct ones. However, the robot is expected to statistically lose the data of the incorrect ones as outliers through the learning, and consequently acquires the appropriate sensorimotor coordination for joint attention even if the environment is not controlled nor the caregiver provides any task evaluation. The experimental results suggest that the proposed model could explain the developmental mechanism of the infant’s joint attention because the learning process of the robot’s joint attention can be regarded as equivalent to the developmental process of the infant’s one

Infant Responding to Joint Attention, Executive Processes, and Self-Regulation in Preschool Children

Infant joint attention is related to behavioral and social outcomes, as well as language in childhood. Recent research and theory suggests that the relations between joint attention and social–behavioral outcomes may reflect the role of executive self-regulatory processes in the development of joint attention. To test this hypothesis two studies were conducted. The first, cross-sectional study examined the development of responding to joint attention (RJA) skill in terms of increasing executive efficiency of responding between 9 and 18 months of age. The results indicated that development of RJA was characterized by a decreased latency to shift attention in following another person\u27s gaze and head turn, as well as an increase in the proportion of correct RJA responses exhibited by older infants. The second study examined the longitudinal relations between 12-month measures of responding to joint attention and 36-month attention regulation in a delay of gratification task. The results indicated that responding to joint attention at 12-months was significantly related to children\u27s use of three types of self-regulation behaviors while waiting for a snack reward at 36 months of age. These observations are discussed in light of a developmental theory of attention regulation and joint attention in infancy

Segmentation Stability: a Key Component for Joint Attention

It is now well established that joint attention is a key capability for socially interacting robots (Brooks et al., 1999, Kaplan and Hafner, 2004, Scassellati, 1999, Itti, 2003). It is also a key component for epigenetic robotic applications in general. This subject has been widely discussed and we present here one specific technical improvement for joint attention which relies on image segmentation. In the new Talking Robots (Baillie, 2004) experiment that we have started, following a successful reimplementation of the Sony’s Talking Heads (Steels, 1998) experiment o

The N170 event-related potential differentiates congruent and incongruent gaze responses in gaze leading

To facilitate social interactions, humans need to process the responses that other people make to their actions, including eye movements that could establish joint attention. Here, we investigated the neurophysiological correlates of the processing of observed gaze responses following the participants’ own eye movement. These observed gaze responses could either establish, or fail to establish, joint attention. We implemented a gaze leading paradigm in which participants made a saccade from an on-screen face to an object, followed by the on-screen face either making a congruent or incongruent gaze shift. An N170 event-related potential was elicited by the peripherally located gaze shift stimulus. Critically, the N170 was greater for joint attention than non-joint gaze both when task-irrelevant (Experiment 1) and task-relevant (Experiment 2). These data suggest for the first time that the neurocognitive system responsible for structural encoding of face stimuli is affected by the establishment of participant-initiated joint attention

Identification. The missing link between joint attention and imitation

In this paper we outline our hypothesis that human intersubjective engagement entails identifying with other people. We tested a prediction derived from this hypothesis that concerned the relation between a component of joint attention and a specific form of imitation. The empirical investigation involved “blind” ratings of videotapes from a recent study in which we tested matched children with and without autism for their propensity to imitate the self-/other-orientated aspects of another person's actions. The results were in keeping with three a priori predictions, as follows: (a) children with autism contrasted with control participants in spending more time looking at the objects acted upon and less time looking at the tester; (b) participants with autism showed fewer “sharing” looks toward the tester, and although they also showed fewer “checking” and “orientating” looks, they were specifically less likely to show any sharing looks; and, critically, (c) within each group, individual differences in sharing looks (only) were associated with imitation of self–other orientation. We suggest that the propensity to adopt the bodily anchored psychological stance of another person is essential to certain forms of joint attention and imitation, and that a weak tendency to identify with others is pivotal for the developmental psychopathology of autism

The Efficacy of Joint Attention Interventions on Play Skills in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review

Purpose:The aim of this study is to determine if joint attention interventions have an effect on general play skills in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) aged birth to five years. Method: The reviewers examined various databases and selected research based on predetermined inclusion/exclusion criteria. This included peer-reviewed research articles that assessed children with a formal diagnosis of ASD between the ages of birth to five years, examined joint attention interventions, included outcome measures related to play, and were published after the year 2000. The articles reviewed consisted of 581 participants. Research designs included primarily pre-post randomized clinical trials, one single subject multiple baseline design, and one case study design. Results: The collective results suggest that joint attention interventions may be effective in increasing play skills in children with ASD. While some studies report no change to either functional or symbolic play skills, other studies report improvements in only one type. No study reports a decrease in play skills. Conclusion: While there is evidence that joint attention interventions may improve play skills in children with ASD, overall, the results of this systematic review are inconclusive. Future research will help to clarify if joint attention interventions have a measurable impact on either symbolic or functional play skill development.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/csdms/1001/thumbnail.jp