Joint attention

Joint attention is the process by which one alerts another to a stimulus via nonverbal means, such as gazing or pointing. For example, one person may gaze at another person, and then point to an object, and then return their gaze back to the other person. In this case, the pointing person is "initiating joint attention" by trying to get the other to look at the object. The person who looks to the referenced object is "responding to joint attention." Joint attention is referred to a triadic skill, meaning that it involves two people and a object or event outside of the duo. It is well documented that infants display both types of joint attention at 9 months of age. Recently it was discovered that infants as young as 3 months of age clearly discriminate between triadic and non triadic contexts.^[1] Great apes (orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobo) also show some understanding of joint attention.^[2] There is a debate in contemporary psychology about the psychological significance of joint attention: the majority of theorists believe that although both humans and the great apes use it as a means to an end, humans alone also use it for purely altruistic communicative purposes,^[3] whereas a vocal minority maintain that joint attention is always a means to an end (i.e., that "pure communication" in the infancy period is a myth), and therefore joint attention by apes and humans reflects shared psychological processes.^[4]

Notes

1. ^ Striano, T., & Stahl, D. (2005). Sensitivity to triadic attention in early infancy. Developmental Science, 8(4), 333-343.
2. ^ Leavens, David A., Hopkins, William D., & Bard, K. A. The heterochronic origins of explicit reference. In J. Zlatev, T. Racine, C. Sinha, & E. Itkonen (Eds.), The shared mind: Perspectives on intersubjectivity (pp. 187-214. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2008.
3. ^ Tomasello, Michael: Constructing a language. Harvard University press, Cambridge, MA., 2003
4. ^ Leavens, David A., & Racine, Timothy P. Joint attention in apes and humans: Are humans unique? Journal of Consciousness Studies, 16, 240-267, 2009.