Greg D. Reynolds

This study examined the immediate effects of mask-wearing on infant selective visual attention to audiovisual speech in familiar and unfamiliar languages. Infants distribute their selective attention to regions of a speaker's face differentially based on their age and language experience. However, the potential impact wearing a face mask may have on infants' selective attention to audiovisual speech has not been systematically studied. We utilized eye tracking to examine the proportion of infant looking time to the eyes and mouth of a masked or unmasked actress speaking in a familiar or unfamiliar language. Six-month-old and 12-month-old infants (n = 42, 55% female, 91% White Non-Hispanic/Latino) were shown videos of an actress speaking in a familiar language (English) with and without a mask on, as well as videos of the same actress speaking in an unfamiliar language (German) with and without a mask. Overall, infants spent more time looking at the unmasked presentations compared to the masked presentations. Regardless of language familiarity or age, infants spent more time looking at the mouth area of an unmasked speaker and they spent more time looking at the eyes of a masked speaker. These findings indicate mask-wearing has immediate effects on the distribution of infant selective attention to different areas of the face of a speaker during audiovisual speech.

The current study utilized eye-tracking to investigate the effects of intersensory redundancy and language on infant visual attention and detection of a change in prosody in audiovisual speech. Twelve-month-old monolingual English-learning infants viewed either synchronous (redundant) or asynchronous (non-redundant) presentations of a woman speaking in native or non-native speech. Halfway through each trial, the speaker changed prosody from infant-directed speech (IDS) to adult-directed speech (ADS) or vice versa. Infants focused more on the mouth of the speaker on IDS trials compared to ADS trials regardless of language or intersensory redundancy. Additionally, infants demonstrated greater detection of prosody changes from IDS speech to ADS speech in native speech. Planned comparisons indicated that infants detected prosody changes across a broader range of conditions during redundant stimulus presentations. These findings shed light on the influence of language and prosody on infant attention and highlight the complexity of audiovisual speech processing in infancy.

In this article, we review the literature on the development of visual working memory (VWM). We focus on two major periods of development, infancy and early childhood. First, we discuss the innovative methods that have been devised to understand how the development of selective attention and perception provide the foundation of VWM abilities. We detail the behavioral and neural data associated with the development of VWM during infancy. Next, we discuss various signatures of development in VWM during early childhood in the context of spatial and featural memory processes. We focus on the developmental transition to more adult-like VWM properties. Finally, we discuss computational frameworks that have explained the complex patterns of behavior observed in VWM tasks from infancy to adulthood and attempt to explain links between measures of infant VWM and childhood VWM.

We present an integrative review of research and theory on major factors involved in the early development of attentional biases to faces. Research utilizing behavioral, eye-tracking, and neuroscience measures with infant participants as well as comparative research with animal subjects are reviewed. We begin with coverage of research demonstrating the presence of an attentional bias for faces shortly after birth, such as newborn infants’ visual preference for face-like over non-face stimuli. The role of experience and the process of perceptual narrowing in face processing are examined as infants begin to demonstrate enhanced behavioral and neural responsiveness to mother over stranger, female over male, own- over other-race, and native over non-native faces. Next, we cover research on developmental change in infants’ neural responsiveness to faces in multimodal contexts, such as audiovisual speech. We also explore the potential influence of arousal and attention on early perceptual preferences for faces. Lastly, the potential influence of the development of attention systems in the brain on social-cognitive processing is discussed. In conclusion, we interpret the findings under the framework of Developmental Systems Theory, emphasizing the combined and distributed influence of several factors, both internal (e.g., arousal, neural development) and external (e.g., early social experience) to the developing child, in the emergence of attentional biases that lead to enhanced responsiveness and processing of faces commonly encountered in the native environment.

This study examined behavioral, heart rate (HR), and event‐related potential (ERP) correlates of attention and recognition memory for 4.5‐, 6‐, and 7.5‐month‐old infants (N = 45) during stimulus encoding. Attention was utilized as an independent variable using HR measures. The Nc ERP component associated with attention and the late slow wave (LSW) associated with recognition memory were analyzed. The 7.5‐month‐olds demonstrated a significant reduction in Nc amplitude with stimulus repetition. This reduction in Nc was not found for younger infants. Additionally, infants only demonstrated differential LSW amplitude based on stimulus type on attentive trials as defined by HR changes. These findings indicate that from 4.5 to 7.5 months, infants’ attentional engagement is influenced by an increasingly broader range of stimulus characteristics.

The current study investigated the effects of stimulus symmetry on the processing of global and local stimulus properties by 6‐month‐old short‐ and long‐looking infants through the use of event‐related potentials (ERPs). Previous research has shown that individual differences in infant visual attention are related to hierarchical stimulus processing, such that short lookers show a global processing bias, while long lookers demonstrate a local processing bias (Guy, Reynolds, & Zhang, 2013). Additional research has shown that in comparison with asymmetry, symmetry is associated with more efficient stimulus processing and more accurate memory for stimulus configuration (Attneave, 1955; Perkins, 1932). In the current study, we utilized symmetric and asymmetric hierarchical stimuli and predicted that the presence of asymmetry would direct infant attention to the local features of stimuli, leading short lookers to regress to a local processing strategy. Results of the ERP analysis showed that infants familiarized with a symmetric stimulus showed evidence of global processing, while infants familiarized with an asymmetric stimulus did not demonstrate evidence of processing at the global or local level. These findings indicate that short‐ and long‐looking infants, who might otherwise fail to process global stimulus properties due to limited visual scanning, may succeed at global processing when exposed to symmetric stimuli. Furthermore, stimulus symmetry may recruit selective attention toward global properties of visual stimuli, facilitating higher‐level cognitive processing in infancy.

In this paper, we review research and theory on the development of attention and working memory in infancy using a developmental cognitive neuroscience framework. We begin with a review of studies examining the influence of attention on neural and behavioral correlates of an earlier developing and closely related form of memory (i.e., recognition memory). Findings from studies measuring attention utilizing looking measures, heart rate, and event-related potentials (ERPs) indicate significant developmental change in sustained and selective attention across the infancy period. For example, infants show gains in the magnitude of the attention related response and spend a greater proportion of time engaged in attention with increasing age (Richards & Turner, 2001). Throughout infancy, attention has a significant impact on infant performance on a variety of tasks tapping into recognition memory; however, this approach to examining the influence of infant attention on memory performance has yet to be utilized in research on working memory. In the second half of the paper, we review research on working memory in infancy focusing on studies that provide insight into the developmental timing of significant gains in working memory as well as research and theory related to neural systems potentially involved in working memory in early development. We also examine issues related to measuring and distinguishing between working memory and recognition memory in infancy. To conclude, we discuss relations between the development of attention systems and working memory.