The multimodal coordination of sustained attention: Its development and consequences for word learning in a social context

Borjon Jeremy I, Bloomington IN

Investigators

Abstract

This award was provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program and SBE's Science of Learning and Developmental Sciences programs. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Linda B. Smith at Indiana University, Bloomington, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating the development of sustained attention in infants. An infant's ability to sustain their visual attention is a developmental achievement that exemplifies the complexity of human development and is predictive of far-reaching developmental outcomes such as self-control, language, and later school achievement. Sustained attention is more than just looking. It is a complex sensory-motor state that includes object holding, a stable head, and stillness of body. This multimodal coordination does not occur in a vacuum. It is inherently embedded in and supported by social interactions with a mature partner. The exact ways in which social interactions support infant sustained visual attention and impact its multimodal coordination is unknown. The proposed research aims to construct a unified, mechanistic understanding of how the multimodal state of sustained visual attention emerges in the context of play with a caregiver and responds to changes in both the infant's own behavior as well as the behavior of the caregiver. The planned study uses novel methodologies such as head-mounted eye-tracking and an in-house built wireless vest equipped with wireless sensors to densely sample multiple components of infant behavior: eye gaze, body movement, heart rate, respiratory rate. Using a single data-collecting procedure, the present research will identify the multimodal components of sustained visual attention in 12- to 18-month old toddlers, an age when individual differences in sustained attention emerge with predictive consequences. Study 1 will identify the multimodal components of sustained attention and how they develop in a context without the interaction of a mature partner. Study 2 will identify how the child's own holding behavior supports and organizes these components. Study 3 will leverage a context where infants and their caregivers play together with objects, to address how the behaviors of caregivers and their internal state organize the infant's multimodal attention. Study 4 will answer whether the quality of the coordination between caregivers and their infants have practical consequences for cognitive achievements such as word learning and language outcomes. Results from these studies will make significant advancements in our understanding of the use, development, and consequences of the multimodal state of sustained attention. The proposed project has relevance to the fields of Developmental, Cognitive, and the Computational Sciences. In addition, this proposal leverages the development of a novel, wireless device to capture infant movement, heart rate, and respiration. The schematics of the vest, instructions for its construction, and a suite of custom software will be made freely available for public use. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.