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Conceptualizing Social Attention in Developmental Research
Author(s) -
Salley Brenda,
Colombo John
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
social development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.078
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1467-9507
pISSN - 0961-205X
DOI - 10.1111/sode.12174
Subject(s) - psychology , construct (python library) , neurocognitive , extant taxon , social cognition , cognitive psychology , variety (cybernetics) , cognition , social neuroscience , context (archaeology) , cognitive science , developmental psychology , neuroscience , paleontology , evolutionary biology , artificial intelligence , computer science , biology , programming language
Abstract The term social attention has become widely used during the last decade, appearing within behavioral neuroscience and developmental neurocognitive literatures to characterize a variety of activities and cognitive processes that emerge in the presence of conspecifics. We provide here an overview of the current status of social attention as a construct, as reflected in its appearance in research studies, and we offer a framework for characterizing the extant literature based on the functions of social attention processes: as behavior for social communication, as motivation to engage in social communication, and as a form of basic visual attention in the context of other social agents. We then provide two overarching questions to guide future research efforts directed toward establishing the utility of social attention as an independent and/or unified construct. We then consider implications and recommendations for future research efforts.