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Developmental markers of joint attention in infancy[edit]

At the age of 2 months , children engage in dyadic joint attention and conversation-like exchanges with adults.[1] During which each is the focus of the other's attention and they take turns exchanging looks, noises and mouth movements.[1] At age 3 months, children display joint attention skills by calling to caregiver when they are not perceivable [2] At age 6 months, infants display joint attentional skills by:

  • Orienting themselves in the same general direction (in their visual field) as another person.[1] Infants also cease to focus on the first interesting (salient) object they encounter.[1]
  • Following outward directed gaze of adults. [1]
  • Extending more sophisticated behaviors such as gaze checking when initial gaze following does not identify particular aspect.[3]
  • Paying more attention to eyes, respond to shifts in eye gaze direction and direct their own attention based on another's gaze.[4]

At age 8 months, infants demonstrate joint attention through proto-declarative pointing, particularly in girls.[1] At 9 months of age, infants begin to display triadic joint attention [5] Infants also will display joint attention activities such as communicative gestures, social referencing, and using behavior of others to guide response to novel things. [1]

At one year of age, joint attention is displayed through a child's understanding pointing as an intentional act and the ability to locate the object that another person is looking at.[1] One year olds also establish joint attention for objects within their visual field before object beyond their current visual field. At this age, infants are not yet able to represent their entire environment, only what they can see.[1] At age 15 months, children recognize the minds of others (Theory of Mind).[1] At this age children also recognize the importance of eyes for seeing and that physical objects can block sight.[4] At age 18 months, infants are capable of following an individual's gaze to outside their visual field and establishing (representative) joint attention.[1] 18 month old's also grasp the intentional, referential nature of looking, the mentalistic experience of seeing and the role of eyes[4] and are skilled at following both gaze and pointing with precision.[4] At two years of age children display joint attention by extending attention beyond the present. Understanding that targets of other's attention extends to the past as well.[2] 2 year old's are also capable of representational thought (Piaget) or increased memory (Information processing).[2]


Joint attention is the shared focus of two individuals on an object. It is achieved when one individual alerts another to an object by means of eye-gazing, pointing or other verbal or non-verbal indication. An individual gazes at another individual, points to an object and then returns their gaze to the individual. Scaife and Bruner were the first researchers to present a cross-sectional description of early joint attention in 1975.[6]

Two important skills in joint attention are following gaze and identifying intention. The ability to follow gaze or share gaze with another individual is an important skill in establishing reference. The ability to identify intention, is important in a child's ability to learn language and direct the attention of others. Joint attention is important for many aspects of language development including comprehension, production and especially word learning. Episodes of joint attention provide children with information about their environment, allowing individuals to establish reference from spoken language and learn words. Socio-emotional development and the ability to take part in normal relationships are also influenced by joint attention abilities. The ability to establish joint attention may be negatively affected by deafness, blindness and developmental disorders such as autism.

Animals such as Great apes,orangutans, chimpanzees, dogs and horses also show some understanding of joint attention.




[7] Bruner argues that joint attention eventually provides a context for the development of explicit prediction.[8]

Psychologists attribute the work of Bruner and his students as being the first research into joint attention.[6] Scaife and Bruner were the first researchers to present a cross-sectional description of early joint attention in 1975.[6]

Chris Moore, Philip Dunham "Joint attention its origins and role in development." 1995. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

Prediction: Prediction in the pre-linguistic child (affirming or asserting something of or about the subject of a proposition). Words could be treated as compact forms within a framework dependent on the context that the child is within. Explore the way in which unmentioned words in conversation can make their way into a childs vocabulary. Mother and child dyads create the context in which shared topics are identifies. Prediction as a communicative act- to specify something about a topic, or to do so in a way that topic and comment can be seperated.



A core deficit noted in autism is eye gaze.[9] It is reported that autistic children have difficulty alternating their attention towards a partner and third object.[9] This difficulty is attributed to their deficiencies in following gaze, resulting in difficulty initiating and maintaining joint attention.[9]

after issue |doi=10.1111/j.1467-7687.2005.00421.x


Approximate Age of Infant Joint Attentional Behavior
2 Months Engaging in dyadic joint attention and conversation-like exchanges with adults during which each is the focus of the other’s attention and they take turns exchanging looks, noises and mouth movements.
3 Months Calling to caregiver when they are not perciveable [2]
6 Months *Orienting themselves in the same general direction (in their visual field) as another person.
  • Ceasing to focus on the first interesting (salient) object they encounter.
  • Following outward directed gaze of adults.
  • May extend to more sophisticated behaviors such as gaze checking when initial gaze following does not identify particular aspect.[10]
  • Paying more attention to eyes, respond to shifts in eye gaze direction and direct their own attention based on another's gaze.[4]
8 Months May demonstrate prodeclarative pointing, particularly in girls. [1]
9 Months *Begining triadic joint attention [11]
  • Showing measureable joint attention activities such as communicative gestures, social referencing, and using behavior of others to guide response to novel things [1]
12 Months *Understanding pointing as an intentional act [1]
  • Are able to locate the object that another person is looking at.
  • Establishing joint attention for objects within their visual field before object beyond their current visual field. At this age, infants are not yet able to represent their entire environment, only what they can see.
15 Months *Recognizing the minds of others (Theory of Mind)[1]
  • Around this age (14–18 months), infants begin to recognize the importance of eyes for seeing and that physical objects can block sight.
18 Months *Following an individual’s gaze to outside their visual field and establishing (representative) joint attention.
  • Grasping the intentional, referential nature of looking, the mentalistic experience of seeing and the role of eyes.[4]
  • Are skilled at following both gaze and pointing with precision.[4]
2 Years *Can extend attention beyond the present. Grasp of targets of others attention now extends to the past as well.[2]
  • Capable of representational thought (Piaget) or increased memory (Information processing).[2]

Gaze[edit]

For an individual to engage in joint attention, reference must be established.[12] Most commonly reference is established through following of gaze or directive actions of others.[12] For an individual to understand that following gaze establishes reference the individual must display:

  • A recognition that looking is an intentional behavior directed to external objects and events. Following anothers gaze serves the purpose of establishing reference. [12]
  • An understanding that looking results in the mental experience of seeing an object or event.[12]
  • The recognition that eyes are responsible for seeing.[12]
  • The recognition that both individuals and others share in the capacity to see things.[12]

Gaze is important to joint attention because as it becomes more complex, indivudals are better able to discriminate what others are referring to.[10] Gaze becomes more complex with age and practise.[4][13] Joint attention is also important to social learning. Gaze-following seems to reflect an expectation based type of orienting in which individuals attention is cued by anothers head turn or eye turn.[14] Individuals are motivated to follow anothers gaze, and engage in joint attention because often another person's gaze is a cue for where rewarding events might occur.

Intention[edit]

Joint attention involves the ability to identify intention.When individuals understand that others have goals, intentions, and attentional states, they become able to enter into, and direct others attention.[12] The significance of this is that joint attention promotes and maintains dyadic exchanges and learning about the nature of social partners.[12] The ability to engage in joint attention is crucial for language development.[15][16] It is in this manner that joint attention is used to facilitate communication and learning.

When people intend to do something their is regularity in their behavior.[17] Individuals locate objects with their eyes, move towards the object, use hands to make contact and then manipulate the object.[17] Gaze cues are one of several behavioral cues that individuals may use in combination to infer intention in action.[17] Changes in body posture and facial and vocal displays often co-occur with changes in a gaze direction when a person intends to act on an object.[17] If an individual seeks or follows a joint focus of attention, it suggests a knowledge that what is in his/her awareness is also in the others awareness, a 'belief' that he/she is experiencing the same world as others are.[2]

Comprehension[edit]

Episodes of joint attention provide children with a great deal of information about objects and the environment by establishing reference and intention.[4]

An individuals understanding is influenced by context. An individual must be able to identify reference and intention by another in order to understand that the individual is sharing information. This is a limit of joint attention, without these abilities individuals are not engaging mentally with oneanother. [8]

Previous Sections:[edit]

Gaze[edit]

As an individual develops what is jointly attended and referred to, they becomes more finely discriminated and the sequence of cooperative actions become more highly focused and differentiated.[10] At six months, infants understand at least one intentional action as involving a link between actor and object.[4] At around 14 months infants do not simply following the declarative actions of others. Instead, they take the adults as trying to tell them something relevant to their shared experience or common ground.[13]

Infants are motivated to master joint attention in order to do things like others do.[13] This tendency to be like others, and to align themselves with group members, along with a complementary social pressure coming from the group to conform, ensures cultural transmission of conventional knowledge and share values, and compliance with social norms.[13] Infants keep track of knowledge and experiences they have shared with others in the past and use this common ground both to make sense of others and themselves.[13] It has been argued that joint attention plays an important role in the development of theory of mind. Joint attention and theory of mind are important precursors to a fully developed grasp of psychological notions.[10]

Following Gaze[edit]

The naturalistic approach to joint attention proposes that joint attention occurs in three distinct stages.[18] The first stage (ecological) occurs in infants about six months old. At this stage they progress to orienting themselves in the same general direction (in their visual field) as another person. At this stage infants will cease their search at the first interesting (salient) object they encounter. At 12 months of age infants move into the second stage (geometric) of joint attention. They are then able to locate the object that another person is looking at. At 12 months infants will establish joint attention for objects within their visual field before object without their visual field. At this age, infants are not yet able to represent their entire environment, only what they can see. By 18 months, when the third stage is reached, infants will follow an individuals gaze to outside their visual field and establish (representative) joint attention.

The empirical approach to joint attention assumes that infants follow an adult's gaze because it is likely to lead something interesting. This approach assumes that another person's gaze is a cue for where rewarding events might occur. The believe that social learning leads to joint attention.

To be credited with understanding the referential nature of gaze infants must display:

  • recognition that looking is intentional behavior directed to external objects and events[12]
  • an understanding that looking results in the mental experience of seeing[12]
  • a recognition that eyes are responsible for seeing[12]
  • the recognition that both self and others share in the capacity to see things[12]

First to appear is a tendency of infant to follow outward directed gaze of adult, followed by more sophistication such as gaze checking when initial gaze following does not identify particular aspect.[10] At 6 months, infants respond to shifting in gaze by shifting their own gaze. They also pay more attention to eyes, respond to shifts in eye gaze direction and direct their own attention based on another's gaze.[4] From 12–14 months, infants may recognize that looking is object directed, but they may not realize that looking results in the mental state of 'seeing'.[12] At older ages (14–18 months), infants begin to recognize the importance of eyes for seeing and that physical objects can block sight.[12] At 18 months of age, infants have a solid grasp on intentional, referential nature of looking, the mentalistic experience of seeing and the role of eyes. Furthermore, at 18 months, infants are skilled at following both gaze and pointing with precision.[4]

Four perspectives of gaze-following in joint attention include the developmental attentional mechanism model, endogenous orienting, priming and gaze following as a distinct form of joint attention.

Another perspective is that gaze following is part of a perceptual attentional system.[14] From this perspective gaze following is a form of endogenous orienting.[14] Endogenous orienting is under conscious or strategic control, takes more time and depends on the intentions and expectancy of the observer.[14] In contrast, Exogenous orienting is described as reflexive or automatic and occurring quickly due to patterns of stimulation.[14] The Endogenous orienting perspective argues that gaze-following seems to reflect a more endogenous or expectation based type of orienting in which the infants attention is cued by an adults head turn or eye turn.[14] Infants understanding of the meaning of eye turns and their ability to use that information for the endogenous control of visual attention develop much more slowly than for exogenous orienting.[14]

An alternative perspective is that infants have some in-born priming to follow the gaze of others.[12] As infants begin to follow others' gaze, they see interesting events or objects which reinforce their gaze -following behavior.[12] Overtime, discriminant learning takes place.[12] This learning may be influenced by a child's perceptual attentional skills.[12] By appealing to a more general information processing system, it does not require a separate gaze-following mechanism.[12]

Another perspective is that gaze following may be one of two distinct forms of joint attention:

  1. When an infant responds to an adults cues by looking in the direction the adults gaze or point, the adult has provided a framework that may elicit an orienting behavior from the child.[12]
  2. If a child initiates joint attention, the act is more volitional and self-organizing.[12]

Intent[edit]

Establishing Intent[edit]

The ability to recognize and convey communicative intent is crucial for language development.[19][20] It is in this manner that joint attention is used to facilitate communication and learning.

When people intend to do something their is regularity in their behavior.[17] Individuals locate objects with their eyes, move towards the object, use hands to make contact and then manipulate the object.[17] Gaze cues are one of several behavioral cues that infants may use in combination to infer intention in action.[17] Changes in body posture and facial and vocal displays often co-occur with changes in a gaze direction when a person intends to act on an object.[17] Evidence shows that by the end of the first year, infants are beginning to use gaze cues to make predictions about others intention.[17]

Communicative Intent[edit]

Joint attention occurs when an individuals is psychologically engaged with someone else's psychological engagement with the world.[21] In one situation A's engagement has to be that she relates to B's relation to the world, or, has to encompass the state of B as this is directed to something that A also experiences from her own vantage point.[21] Understanding the attention of another person is believed to being with the achievement of the (conscious) joining of two peoples attention upon a third element or target.[2]

Human communication in infancy is based on shared intentionality.[13] Pointing gestures are a focusing of cognitive effort that gradually become embedded in sequences of interlocking actions.[10] Furthermore, words are an immensely delicate and useful way of pointing. Pointing is an elaborated way of focusing shared gaze and what grounds the whole enterprise is a sense of living together with another, a sense which perhaps shows itself already in the infant.[10]

Gaze and Communicative Intent[edit]

Infants react emotionally when others attention is directed at them.[2] Although smiling occurs at other times, the onset of mutual gaze is a powerful solicitor of smiles.[2] The onset of mutual gaze is at times accompanied by positive, shy, or coy reactions.[2] These reactions are more common immediately following the onset of attention to self than later on (for example blushing in adults).[2] Infants can also react negatively to attention, too much direct attention from someone can result in attempts to disengages from it, or distress if the infant is unable to disengage.[2]

Anecdotal reports suggest that at around 3 months, after several weeks of the infant showing clear emotional and interested reaction to attention, that infants start to call to caregiver when they are not perceivable.[2] This is supported by experimental evidence in 2-3 year old children. When a parents attention is artificially distorted the infant will try to re-engage parent.[2]

An infant has to recognize that a persons shift in gaze and turns of head are meaningful gestures that usually signal a change in focus.[17] The infant has to recognize that a persons emotional expression also carry meaning and signal a positive or negative evaluation or experience.[17] Furthermore, an infants has to draw the link between the persons attentional gestures, the emotional, expressions,and the object or event that is their focus.[17] The infant can then infer that when someone is looking at an object and communicating that they are likely to be communicating about the object.[17]

Children use gaze following to map words to objects and appear to understand adults referential intent when looking at and labeling a novel object.[12] Even if both forms of joint attention are enabled by an understanding of intentionality in others, they appear to have different social motivational underpinnings.[12] When infants understand that others have goals, intentions, and attentional states, they become able to enter into, and direct others attention.[12] Earliest dyadic communication involve the sharing of affective information. The significance of this is that they promote and maintain dyadic exchanges and subsequent infants learning about nature of social partners.[12]

Reference and Communicative Intent[edit]

Social referencing may reveal the infants need for mother in the face of ambiguity and a reaction to the mothers emotional tone rather than revealing understanding.[2] Infants begin to detect others attention to aspects of the self, rather than to the self as a whole, and to make causal connections between these aspects and the eliciting or maintenance of others attention.[2] Several studies show that infants are drawing connections between actions, emotional cues, and gaze cues in order to make sense of other people, they are using this same behavioral information to make decisions about how they themselves should act.[17] Bruner argues that if an infant seeks or follows a joint focus of attention on the same target, it suggests a knowledge that what is in her awareness is also in the others awareness, a 'belief' that she is experiencing the same world as others are.[2]

Social referencing, or gaze alternating between an object (or aspect of world) and a nearby caregiver occurs around 7–8 months.[2] Seven to eight month old infants appear to be appreciative of attention to themselves and seek to elicit attention to the self as a whole but also to seek to elicit attention to these specific aspects of the self.[2] They do this in two ways. Through clowning (re-eliciting laughter) and showing off (attempted re-eliciting of positive attention or praise.[2] Obtaining others attention usually leads to repetition of the act which suggests a clearer awareness of the link between the attention and the act.[2] Clowning and showing off is low in children with autism, as is proto-declarative pointing.[2]

At 2 years, attention can extend beyond the present and the infants grasp of the targets of others attention now extends to the past as well.[2] Often thought of as representational thought (Piaget) or increased memory (Information processing).[2] Object reference can now become something that is not only spatially but also temporally distal- the object of reference can become something that is distal for the partner in communication even if not for the self, 18 month old infants show this.[2]

Comprehension[edit]

The ability of children to extract information from their environment rests on understandings of attentional behaviors such as pointing.[4] Episodes of joint attention provide children with a great deal of information about objects by establishing reference and intention.[4] Joint attention sets the deictic limits that govern joint attention reference. This consists of the influence of context and the environment such as a parent using a variety of words (couch, sofa, love seat) to refer to the same object, such as a chair. It is also argued that joint attention determines the need for referential taxonomy. Signalling intent is also established due to joint attention. This occurs through the ability to follow the attention of another and determine where the individuals attention is directed. Lastly, Bruner argues that joint attention eventually provides a context for the development of explicit prediction.[8]


  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Goswami, Usha (2008)Cognitive Development: The Learning Brain. New York, NY:Psychology. Cite error: The named reference "Goswami" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Reddy, V. (2005). Before the third element: Understanding attention to self. In N. Eilan, C. Hoerl, T. McCormack & J. Roessler (Eds.), Joint attention: Communication and other minds (pp. 85-109). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Heal2005 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Woodward, A. (2005). Infants' understanding of the actions involved in joint attention. In N. Eilan, C. Hoerl, T. McCormack & J. Roessler (Eds.), Joint attention: Communication and other minds (pp. 110-128). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Oates&Grayson was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ a b c Moore, C.; Dunham, P (1995). Joint Attention It's Origins and Role in Development. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. ISBN 0-8058-1437-X. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Bruner was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ a b c Eilan, N.(2005). Joint attention, communication, and mind. In N. Eilan, C. Hoerl, T. McCormack & J. Roessler (Eds.), Joint attention: Communication and other minds (pp. 1–33). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.ISBN 0-19-924563-0 Cite error: The named reference "Eilan" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  9. ^ a b c Bruinsma, Y., Koegel, R. & Koegel, L. (2004). Joint attention and children with autism: A review of the literature. Mental Retardation and Development Disabilities 10, 169-175.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g Heal, J. (2005). Joint attention and understanding the mind. In N. Eilan, C. Hoerl, T. McCormack & J. Roessler (Eds.), Joint attention: Communication and other minds (pp. 34-44). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
  11. ^ Oates, John and Grayson, Andrew. (2004)Cognitive and language development in children.Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y D'Entremont, B., Yazbeck, A., Morgan, A. & MacAulay, S. (2007). Early gaze-following and the understanding of others. In R. Flomm, K. Lee & D. Muir (Eds.), Gaze-following: It's development and significance (pp. 77-94). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
  13. ^ a b c d e f Cite error: The named reference Carpenter was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ a b c d e f g Cite error: The named reference MacPherson was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ Tomasello, M., & Farrar, J. (1986). Joint attention and early language. Child Development, 57, 1454-1463
  16. ^ Baldwin, D.A.(1995). Understanding the link between joint attention and language. In C. Moore & P.J. Dunham (Eds.) Joint attention: Its origins and role in development (pp.131-158). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
  17. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Mumme, D., Bushnell, E., DiCorcia, J. & Lariviere, L. (2007). Infants' use of gaze cues to interpret others' actions and emotional reactions. In R. Flomm, K. Lee & D. Muir (Eds.), Gaze-following: It's development and significance (pp. 143-170). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
  18. ^ Butterworth & Cochran, Butterworth & Jarrett, Butterworth as cited in Okamoto-Barth S., & Tomonaga M. (2006). Development of Joint Attention in Infant Chimpanzees. In Matsuzawa T, Tomonaga M., & Tanaka M. (Eds.), Cognitive Development in Chimpanzees (pp.155-171). Tokyo: Springer-Verlag.
  19. ^ Tomasello, M., & Farrar, J. (1986). Joint attention and early language. Child Development, 57, 1454-1463
  20. ^ Baldwin, D.A.(1995). Understanding the link between joint attention and language. In C. Moore & P.J. Dunham (Eds.) Joint attention: Its origins and role in development (pp.131-158). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
  21. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Hobson was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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