Joint attention: New research on social, cognitive, and neurological processes in typical and atypical development

1998 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 141
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jairo Pérez-Osorio ◽  
Eva Wiese ◽  
Agnieszka Wykowska

The present chapter provides an overview from the perspective of social cognitive neuroscience (SCN) regarding theory of mind (ToM) and joint attention (JA) as crucial mechanisms of social cognition and discusses how these mechanisms have been investigated in social interaction with artificial agents. In the final sections, the chapter reviews computational models of ToM and JA in social robots (SRs) and intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) and discusses the current challenges and future directions.


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 161
Author(s):  
Saif Alnaqbi

<p class="a"><span lang="EN-US">The goal of this study is to examine the internal and external effect of students’ attitude towards the intention to enter the vocational education in the UAE through examining the different factors of attitude such as social, individual, demographic and organization. Because of the inconsistent results, for further investigation, a new research has established through introducing new and different variables that may better explain the nature of that relationships and issues. In the literature, many theories have suggested that link between variables such as Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), and Social Cognitive Theory (SCT). Questionnaires were distributed to 700 students. 549 questionnaires were returned and using in the analysis using SPSS software version 18.0 through descriptive an inferential statistics. In addition, Independent T-test and Scheffe' test were used to test and hypothesized the hypotheses. So, the results of this study showed that there are significant differences in the parents’ responses between Social factors of vocational education according to their gender and the region either urban or rural. In another hands, the result of the students was found to have significant differences of the attitudes and importance in rural and urban regions. In addition to that, all parents either in government or private sectors agreed the importance and vocational education future for their children. Moreover, the culture in both sectors is differently seen by society in terms of the vocational education. This study also supported the premises of the TRA, TPB, and SCT theories by reaffirming the importance of the study’s variables for supporting the intention of the students towards the vocational education.</span></p>


1990 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 367-391 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judy Reilly ◽  
Edward S. Klima ◽  
Ursula Bellugi

AbstractThe study of clearly identifiable patterns of atypical development can inform normal development in significant ways. Delayed or deviant development puts in high relief not only the sequence of development but also the individual components. This article presents the results of studies that compare adolescents with Williams syndrome, a rare metabolic neurodevelopmental disorder resulting in mental retardation, with cognitively matched adolescents with Down syndrome. We investigate the interaction between affect and language through storytelling. In contrast to the adolescents with Down syndrome, the Williams syndrome subjects tell coherent and complex narratives that make extensive use of affective prosody. Furthermore, stories from the Williams but not the Down subjects are infused with lexically encoded narrative evaluative devices that enrich the referential content of the stories. This contrast in expressivity between two matched atypical groups provides an unusual perspective on the underlying structure of the social cognitive domain.


2020 ◽  
pp. 96-123
Author(s):  
Yana K. Smirnova

Relevance. The article discusses the relationship between the development of joint (shared) attention of a child with an adult, and the social and cognitive development of the child. Based on previous studies of typically developing children that demonstrate their participation and responsiveness to fundamental social characteristics, it is significant to identify manifestations of atypical joint attention when a child does not register which object (event) or which aspects of this object (event) are the focus of an interlocutor’s attention. The question of which aspects of joint attention are related to the normative development of the child makes this relevant for comparing groups with different forms of atypical development. For the study, the main indicator of understanding the intentions of the other in the direction of view was used, as one of the aspects of joint attention. Objective. To compare the development of social cognition and joint attention among typically developing children and children with various forms of atypical development in order to identify the correlation between the theory of mind and cognitive lesion. Methods. In a sample of preschool children with typical development and of those with mental retardation, hearing impairment, speech impairment, or visual impairment (N = 90), the following methods were used to evaluate the children’s understanding of the intentions, desires, and interests of others by their behavioral manifestations: “Test for Erroneous Opinion”, “Sally-Ann”; the “What does Charlie want?” task, and others. The task was also used to assess the child’s ability to use the direction of a character’s gaze in a picture to determine the person’s intentions. Results. We identified the “primary psychological” characteristics of the atypical development of the child, which prioritize violations of social communication. Several variations of the violation of joint attention were singled out by determining a person’s intentions by the direction of their gaze. It was shown that determining intentions by the direction of gaze is associated with the normative age formation of the child. Symptoms of deficiency in this skill vary depending on the specifics of the child’s atypical development. Conclusions. Secondary deviations in the development of social cognition are specific to a particular primary defect. The limited inflow of information in the event of a violation of the analyzer creates unusual conditions in the children’s accumulation of the experience of social interaction that is necessary to form a mental model.


Author(s):  
Peter Mundy

A neural networks approach to the development of joint attention can inform the study of the nature of human social cognition, learning, and symbolic thought process. Joint attention development involves increments in the capacity to engage in simultaneous or parallel processing of information about one’s own attention and the attention of other people. Infant practice with joint attention is both a consequence and an organizer of a distributed and integrated brain network involving frontal and parietal cortical systems. In this chapter I discuss two hypotheses that stem from this model. One is that activation of this distributed network during coordinated attention enhances the depth of information processing and encoding beginning in the first year of life. I also propose that with development joint attention becomes internalized as the capacity to socially coordinate mental attention to internal representations. As this occurs the executive joint attention network makes vital contributions to the development of human social cognition and symbolic thinking.


2003 ◽  
Vol 358 (1430) ◽  
pp. 315-324 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Charman

Joint attention abilities play a crucial role in the development of autism. Impairments in joint attention are among the earliest signs of the disorder and joint attention skills relate to outcome, both in the ‘natural course’ of autism and through being targeted in early intervention programmes. In the current study, concurrent and longitudinal associations between joint attention and other social communication abilities measured in a sample of infants with autism and related pervasive developmental disorders at age 20 months, and language and symptom severity at age 42 months, were examined. Extending the findings from previous studies, joint attention ability was positively associated with language gains and (lower) social and communication symptoms, and imitation ability was also positively associated with later language. Some specificity in the association between different aspects of joint attention behaviours and outcome was found: declarative, triadic gaze switching predicted language and symptom severity but imperative, dyadic eye contact behaviours did not. Further, although joint attention was associated with later social and language symptoms it was unrelated to repetitive and stereotyped symptoms, suggesting the latter may have a separate developmental trajectory. Possible deficits in psychological and neurological processes that might underlie the impaired development of joint attention in autism are discussed.


2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANGELIKA H. CLAUSSEN ◽  
PETER C. MUNDY ◽  
SANGEETA A. MALLIK ◽  
JENNIFER C. WILLOUGHBY

The development of joint attention skills is a major milestone of infancy. Recent research suggests that the development of these skills may be affected by disorganized (D) attachment. This hypothesis was examined in a longitudinal study of attachment and joint attention skill development in a sample of infants at risk for developmental–behavioral morbidity. The results revealed that toddlers with D classifications initiated joint attention with an experimenter significantly less often than did secure, or even other insecure, toddlers. However, no group differences in the capacity to respond to the joint attention bids of others were observed in this study. These data suggest that a disturbance in the tendency to initiate episodes of joint attention with others may be indicative of early social–cognitive and social–emotional disturbance among infants affected by disorganized attachment status. Theory and research is reviewed to suggest that an early impairment in joint attention facility may make a significant contribution to risk for negative cognitive and emotional outcomes among these infants.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-121
Author(s):  
Ya.K. Smirnova

The article is devoted to the study of the relationship between the mechanism of joint attention and the subsequent normative and atypical development of the child. It is shown that the ability to establish joint attention based on the direction of the interlocutor's gaze is a precursor of the emergence of social and cognitive abilities. The study examined the differences between typical developmental children and atypical development control groups in their ability to be sensitive to social behavioral signals, namely the orientation direction of the interlocutor's gaze. On a sample of 120 children with typical development, mental retardation, hearing impairment, speech disorders and visual impairment, a number of tasks were developed to assess the ability to use the character's direction of sight in the picture to determine its intentions. The task measured such a skill of joint attention as the child’s ability to calculate and report what the other person was looking at and what he intended to choose. We also used tasks with a central hint with an explicit indication of an arrow and a peripheral hint to check the recognition of social and non-social orienting signals. Based on the comparison of contrasting groups, the variability of the formation and age-related changes in skills of joint attention, or rather the presence of differences in recognition, synthesis and interpretation orienting social information coming from eye contact. It was found that children with atpic development have a low level of "downward" joint attention. Impaired joint attention may be one of the earliest signs in children with atypical development at a later age. The results showed that deficiencies in the behavior of joint attention vary depending on mental age and level of development, a sensory defect, so the level of development can really affect the ability of children to joint attention.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document