From the Outside-In: Embodied Attention in Toddlers

Abstract

An important goal in cognitive development research is an understanding of the real-world physical and social environment in which learning takes place. However, the relevant aspects of this environment for the learner are only those that make contact with the learner’s sensory system. We report new findings using a novel method that seeks to describe the visual learning environment from a young child’s point of view. The method consists of a multi-camera sensing environment consisting of two head-mounted mini cameras that are placed on both the child’s and the parent’s foreheads respectively. The main results is that the adult and child’s view are fundamentally different in that the child’s view is more dynamic and centered on one object at time. These findings have broad implications for how one thinks about toddler’s attentional task as opposed to adults. In one sense, toddlers have found cheap solution: Selectively attend not by changing internal weights by bringing the attended object close to your eyes so it is the only one in view.