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Maternal Talk About Mental States and the Emergence of Joint Visual Attention
Author(s) -
Slaughter Virginia,
Peterson Candida C.,
Carpenter Malinda
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
infancy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.361
H-Index - 69
eISSN - 1532-7078
pISSN - 1525-0008
DOI - 10.1080/15250000802458807
Subject(s) - joint attention , gaze , psychology , conversation , perception , set (abstract data type) , developmental psychology , visual attention , visual perception , object (grammar) , cognitive psychology , autism , communication , neuroscience , computer science , psychoanalysis , programming language , linguistics , philosophy
Twenty‐four infants were tested monthly for gaze and point following between 9 and 15 months of age and mother‐infant free play sessions were also conducted at 9, 12, and 15 months (Carpenter, Nagell, & Tomasello, 1998). Using this data set, this study explored relations between maternal talk about mental states during mothers' free play with their infants and the emergence of joint visual attention in infants. Contrary to hypothesis, mothers' comments about their infants' perceptual states significantly declined after their infants began to engage in joint visual attention. Comments about other mental states did not change relative to acquisition of joint visual attention skill. We speculate that after infants begin to reliably follow gaze and points, mothers may switch the focus of their conversation from their infants' visual behavior and experiences to the object of their mutual attention.