The Development of Gaze Understanding

Sayer, Catherine Marianne (2024) The Development of Gaze Understanding. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

Introduction. Children follow others’ gaze by their second year (e.g. Corkum & Moore, 1995; Moore & Corkum, 1998), yet many 3-year-olds cannot judge where someone is looking from eye direction alone (Doherty & Anderson 1999; Doherty et al., 2009). It has been claimed that humans have two distinct systems for gaze processing (Doherty 2006; Doherty et al., 2009), with the later developing system motivated by pre-school theory of mind changes.

Objectives. The current thesis explores the two-systems theory and investigates whether young children use a simpler conception of attention not requiring understanding of eye direction.

Methods. Experiment 1 measures 24- to 54-month-old’s gaze judgement, theory of mind performance, and understanding of occlusion. Experiment 2 replicated this longitudinally from 33-to 48-months-old. Experiment 3 and 4 assesses the claim that System 1 remains distinct in adulthood. Faces filtered to remove edge or luminance information were presented in gaze orienting tasks to measure if System 1 can be identified by the visual information it processes.

Results. Young children’s gaze judgement gradually improves in the preschool period. This development is not related to or predicted by theory of mind ability. Children’s early understanding of occlusion does not differentiate between seeing and knowing. A more flexible understanding is associated with gaze judgement ability and predicted by Knowledge Access. Finally, faces retaining luminance or edge information produced equal gaze orienting in adults.

Conclusion. The results are consistent with the claim that children have two systems for processing gaze, but there is no evidence that System 2 development is motivated by children’s increasing interest in others’ minds. Prior to this, children likely understand seeing in terms of spatial and behavioural relations. However, the evidence suggests the two systems do not remain distinct in adulthood.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Psychology
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	13 Feb 2025 08:54
Last Modified:	13 Feb 2025 08:54
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/98457
DOI:

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