The next talk in the CDC Seminar series will be given by<br><br>Stefanie Hoehl, University of Heidelberg<br>Date: March 2, 2011, 5 PM<br>Location: Cognitive Development Center, Hattyś u. 14, 3rd floor<br><br><span></span><a href="http://www.ceu.hu/events/2011-03-02/effects-of-social-and-non-social-cues-on-infants-attention-towards-objects" target="_blank">Effects of social and non-social cues on infants&#39; attention towards objects</a><br>

Infants are sensitive to social cues such as eye gaze and emotional  
expressions from early on. In a series of studies we have examined the  
effects of emotional expressions and eye gaze cues on infants&#39; attention
  towards objects using ERP. At three months of age infants show an  
increased Nc response for objects, which were previously presented with a
  fearful vs. neutral face looking towards the objects. This Nc effect  
was interpreted as reflecting increased attention to the fearfully cued 
 objects. While we found no such effect for happy vs. neutral faces, a  
very similar effect was found for surprised vs. neutral faces. In a  
further series of studies we are comparing the effects of different  
social attention cues with non-social movement cues using ERP and eye  
tracking. Our results show that a turning head affects 4-month-olds  
subsequent neural responses and visual preferences for novel objects,  
while a turning car has no significant effect on infants&#39; attention or  
visual preferences. Our findings suggest that even very young infants  
selectively use social cues to guide their attentional resources.