Social interaction targets enhance 13-month-old infants' associative learning

Infants are attentive to third-party interactions, but the underlying mechanisms of this preference remain understudied. This study examined whether 13-month-old infants (N = 32) selectively learn cue–target associations guiding them to videos depicting a social interaction scene. In a visual learning task, two geometrical shapes were repeatedly paired with two kinds of target videos: two adults interacting with one another (social interaction) or the same adults acting individually (non-interactive control). Infants performed faster saccadic latencies and more predictive gaze shifts toward the cued target region during social interaction trials. These findings suggest that social interaction targets can serve as primary reinforcers in an associative learning task, supporting the view that infants find it intrinsically valuable to observe others’ interactions.     

Organizing Professionalism – New Elites,Stratification and Division of Labor

Public Organization Review - The case in this study is the introduction of a new more prominent position for teachers. The aim is to contribute to the literature on stratification and organizing of...     

The Developmental Origins of Gaze‐Following in Human Infants

During the first year of life, infants develop the capacity to follow the gaze of others. This behavior allows sharing attention and facilitates language acquisition and cognitive development. This article reviews studies that investigated gaze‐following before 12 months of age in typically developing infants and discusses current theoretical perspectives on early GF. Recent research has revealed that early GF is highly dependent on situational constraints and individual characteristics, but theories that describe the underlying mechanisms have partly failed to consider this complexity. We propose a novel framework termed the perceptual narrowing account of GF that may have the potential to integrate existing theoretical accounts.     

A Novel Approach to Chemical Mixture Risk Assessment—Linking Data from Population‐Based Epidemiology and Experimental Animal Tests

Humans are continuously exposed to chemicals with suspected or proven endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). Risk management of EDCs presents a major unmet challenge because the available data for adverse health effects are generated by examining one compound at a time, whereas real‐life exposures are to mixtures of chemicals. In this work, we integrate epidemiological and experimental evidence toward a whole mixture strategy for risk assessment. To illustrate, we conduct the following four steps in a case study: (1) identification of single EDCs (“bad actors”)—measured in prenatal blood/urine in the SELMA study—that are associated with a shorter anogenital distance (AGD) in baby boys; (2) definition and construction of a “typical” mixture consisting of the “bad actors” identified in Step 1; (3) experimentally testing this mixture in an in vivo animal model to estimate a dose–response relationship and determine a point of departure (i.e., reference dose [RfD]) associated with an adverse health outcome; and (4) use a statistical measure of “sufficient similarity” to compare the experimental RfD (from Step 3) to the exposure measured in the human population and generate a “similar mixture risk indicator” (SMRI). The objective of this exercise is to generate a proof of concept for the systematic integration of epidemiological and experimental evidence with mixture risk assessment strategies. Using a whole mixture approach, we could find a higher rate of pregnant women under risk (13%) when comparing with the data from more traditional models of additivity (3%), or a compound‐by‐compound strategy (1.6%).     

The Microstructure of Infants' Gaze as They View Adult Shifts in Overt Attention

We presented infants (5, 6, 9, and 12 months old) with movies in which a female model turned toward and fixated 1 of 2 toys placed on a table. Infants' gaze was measured using a Tobii 1750 eye tracker. Six‐, 9‐, and 12‐month‐olds' first gaze shift from the model's face (after the model started turning) was directed to the attended toy. The 5‐month‐olds performed at random. Following this initial response, 5‐, 6‐, and 9‐month‐olds performed more gaze shifts to the attended target; 12‐month‐olds performed at random. Infants at all ages displayed longer looking times to the attended toy. We discuss a number of explanations for 5‐month‐olds' ability to follow a shift in overt attention by an adult after an initially random response, including the possibility that infants' initial gaze response strengthens the representation of the objects in the peripheral visual field.     

The Blind Spots of Quasi-market Regulators

While quasi-markets should be regulated, in practice regulation may be problematic for market designers because of the competing interests and values involved. This article outlines and problematizes the regulatory process for quasi-markets by focusing on the choices and actions of the regulator (i.e., the public organization). The article concludes that market designers act in different ways based on their different points of reference. These reference points may differ, not only between quasi-market designers but also for the individual quasi-market designer over time. The quasi-market designer may therefore exhibit blind spots because some aspects of operations are in focus in the regulation process, but others may be neglected.

Attention during Visual Preference Tasks: Relation to Caregiving and Face Recognition

This research examined how caregiver experience (female primary caregiver or distributed caregiving with mom and dad) influenced 10‐, 14‐, and 16‐month‐olds’ visual preferences and attention toward internal facial features of female–male face pairs, and how these behaviors related to novelty preferences in a face recognition task and speed and accuracy on a visual search task. In the visual preference task, infants visually preferred male faces, regardless of caregiver experience. Despite similarities in visual preferences, infants’ attention toward females and males’ internal facial features was related for infants with distributed caregiving only. Infants’ performance across face processing tasks most often correlated for those with female primary caregivers. Results further our understanding of how infants with female primary caregivers display specialized processing of female faces, and how infants with distributed caregiving show similarities in their attention to female and male facial features.     

Eighteen‐Month‐Olds,but not 14‐Month‐Olds,Use Social Context to Bind Action Sequences

We demonstrate that 18‐month‐olds, but not 14‐month‐olds, can anticipate others' actions based on an interpretation of shared goals that bind together individual actions into a collaborative sequence. After viewing a sequence of actions performed by two people who socially interact, 18‐month‐olds bound together the socially engaged actors' actions such that they later expected the actors to share the same final goal. Eighteen‐month‐olds who saw nonsocially engaged actors did not have this expectation and neither did 14‐month‐olds when viewing either socially or nonsocially engaged actors. The results are discussed in light of the possibility that experience in collaborations could be necessary for understanding collaboration from a third‐person perspective.     

Gaze following in 4.5‐ and 6‐month‐old infants: The impact of proximity on standard gaze following performance tests

Gaze following (GF), the ability to synchronize visual attention with others, is often considered a foundation of social cognition. In this study, GF was assessed while changing the space between an actor's eyes and the gaze target. This was done to address a potential confound in the gold standard GF performance test, namely the spatial bias of the actors’ eye position that occurs when the actor turns the head to look at a target, offsetting the eye position from a centered position toward the attended target. Our results suggest that both 4.5 (n = 27) and 6 (n = 30)‐month‐old infants can follow an actor's gaze regardless of proximity. This is the first demonstration that early GF is not dependent on proximity cues, and our results strengthen previous findings suggesting that GF develops well before 6 months of age. The study was preregistered, and all data and analysis routines can be downloaded with provided links.