scholarly journals Deixis as a symbolic phenomenon

2011 ◽  
Vol 50 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna E. West
Keyword(s):  
Joint Attention ◽  
Early Development ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Social Phenomenon ◽  
Role Taking ◽  
Speech Situation

Children's early development of demonstrative use emanates directly from indexical gestures, namely, eye gaze, pointing, prehensile reaching, and giving exchanges. These indexical gestures become social in that they are joint attentional, and mark the inception of deictic use. Although children's deictic use draws upon index as a directional and social phenomenon, early uses of index alone do not deliver any semantic/lexical/symbolic determinants to the mix. The distinctive premise here is that deictics, especially demonstratives, are not merely social, but symbolic from a Peircian perspective, especially in light of developmental findings (West 1986, 1987, 2010; Tanz 2009) indicating an acquisitional pattern of non-contrastive to contrastive uses of "this" and "that" from 3;0–4;9. While initial non-contrastive uses of demonstratives are directional and/or social, contrastive use after 3;0 requires apprehension of symbolic role taking/role shifting. In addition to delivering the indexical and/or social, deictic indicators must implicitly refer to a class (Nunberg 1993, 1995), e.g., near/far objects from speaker's perspective in the case of demonstratives, and must ultimately have the potential to contrast objects/places with respect to distinctive points of orientation. These components together illustrate how mastery of deictic indicators is both a socio-pragmatic and semantic enterprise. In addition to indexing objects and securing joint attention with gesture, deixis requires semiotic and semantically based orientational competencies to shift perspectives and speech situation roles.

The Dramatic World View Revisited: Reflections on the Roles Taken and Played by Young Children and Adolescents

Dramatherapy ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. Landy
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Children And Adolescents ◽  
Early Development ◽  
Role Theory ◽  
World View ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Projective Drawings ◽  
Role Taking ◽  
Continuity And Change

In this article, the author revisits an earlier paper published in 1995, “The Dramatic World View: Reflections on the Roles Taken and Played by Young Children,” which surveyed the ways and means that children acquire and play out roles in their early development. The paper was based on Landy's role theory in dramatherapy and on the observation of his two young children from eight months to four years old. The author adds his reflections upon his children twelve years later based on his observation of their projective drawings and stories. These observations lead to a discussion of role-taking and role-playing processes in the continuing development of individuals from childhood through adolescence. Throughout the article, the author examines the continuity and change of roles as manifested in the developing child's expressive activities.

1. Babies and what they know

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Usha Goswami
Keyword(s):  
Joint Attention ◽  
Early Development ◽  
Human Face ◽  
Infants And Toddlers ◽  
Facial Cues ◽  
Intrinsic Interest ◽  
Psychological Understanding ◽  
Language Studies

‘Babies and what they know’ explores the early development of children both before birth and during the first stage of childhood, focusing in particular on the importance of interaction. The child starts to learn even before it is born. After birth, babies are capable of learning a great deal from facial cues and the sound of language. They seem fascinated by the human face. This intrinsic interest in faces and eyes has been linked to how we acquire language. Studies on imitation, joint attention, and socio-moral expectations have shown that infants and toddlers start to develop psychological understanding early on.

scholarly journals Responding to joint attention bids in schizophrenia: An interactive eye-tracking study

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (8) ◽  
pp. 2068-2083 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Caruana ◽  
Kiley Seymour ◽  
Jon Brock ◽  
Robyn Langdon
Keyword(s):  
Joint Attention ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Computer Game ◽  
Oculomotor Control ◽  
Facilitation Effect ◽  
Opposite Pattern ◽  
Directional Information ◽  
Communicative Intent ◽  
Gaze Cues

This study investigated social cognition in schizophrenia using a virtual reality paradigm to capture the dynamic processes of evaluating and responding to eye gaze as an intentional communicative cue. A total of 21 patients with schizophrenia and 21 age-, gender-, and IQ-matched healthy controls completed an interactive computer game with an on-screen avatar that participants believed was controlled by an off-screen partner. On social trials, participants were required to achieve joint attention by correctly interpreting and responding to gaze cues. Participants also completed non-social trials in which they responded to an arrow cue within the same task context. While patients and controls took equivalent time to process communicative intent from gaze shifts, patients made significantly more errors than controls when responding to the directional information conveyed by gaze, but not arrow, cues. Despite no differences in response times to gaze cues between groups, patients were significantly slower than controls when responding to arrow cues. This is the opposite pattern of results previously observed in autistic adults using the same task and suggests that, despite general impairments in attention orienting or oculomotor control, patients with schizophrenia demonstrate a facilitation effect when responding to communicative gaze cues. Findings indicate a hyper-responsivity to gaze cues of communicative intent in schizophrenia. The possible effects of self-referential biases when evaluating gaze direction are discussed, as are clinical implications.

Dissociable Roles of the Superior Temporal Sulcus and the Intraparietal Sulcus in Joint Attention: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

2008 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Materna ◽  
Peter W. Dicke ◽  
Peter Thier
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Joint Attention ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Superior Temporal Sulcus ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Intraparietal Sulcus ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Resonance Imaging

Previous imaging work has shown that the superior temporal sulcus (STS) region and the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) are specifically activated during the passive observation of shifts in eye gaze [Pelphrey, K. A., Singerman, J. D., Allison, T., & McCarthy, G. Brain activation evoked by perception of gaze shifts: The influence of context. Neuropsychologia, 41, 156–170, 2003; Hoffman, E. A., & Haxby, J. V. Distinct representations of eye gaze and identity in the distributed human neural system for face perception. Nature Neuroscience, 3, 80–84, 2000; Puce, A., Allison, T., Bentin, S., Gore, J. C., & McCarthy, G. Temporal cortex activation in humans viewing eye and mouth movements. Journal of Neuroscience, 18, 2188–2199, 1998; Wicker, B., Michel, F., Henaff, M. A., & Decety, J. Brain regions involved in the perception of gaze: A PET study. Neuroimage, 8, 221–227, 1998]. Are the same brain regions also involved in extracting gaze direction in order to establish joint attention? In an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment, healthy human subjects actively followed the directional cue provided by the eyes of another person toward an object in space or, in the control condition, used a nondirectional symbolic cue to make an eye movement toward an object in space. Our results show that the posterior part of the STS region and the cuneus are specifically involved in extracting and using detailed directional information from the eyes of another person to redirect one's own gaze and establish joint attention. The IPS, on the other hand, seems to be involved in encoding spatial direction and mediating shifts of spatial attention independent of the type of cue that triggers this process.

Joint attention difficulties in autistic adults: An interactive eye-tracking study

Autism ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 502-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Caruana ◽  
Heidi Stieglitz Ham ◽  
Jon Brock ◽  
Alexandra Woolgar ◽  
Nadine Kloth ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Joint Attention ◽  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Social Partner ◽  
Spatial Cues ◽  
Adults With Autism ◽  
Autistic Adults ◽  
Subjective Reports ◽  
Infants And Young Children

Joint attention – the ability to coordinate attention with a social partner – is critical for social communication, learning and the regulation of interpersonal relationships. Infants and young children with autism demonstrate impairments in both initiating and responding to joint attention bids in naturalistic settings. However, little is known about joint attention abilities in adults with autism. Here, we tested 17 autistic adults and 17 age- and nonverbal intelligence quotient–matched controls using an interactive eye-tracking paradigm in which participants initiated and responded to joint attention bids with an on-screen avatar. Compared to control participants, autistic adults completed fewer trials successfully. They were also slower to respond to joint attention bids in the first block of testing but performed as well as controls in the second block. There were no group differences in responding to spatial cues on a non-social task with similar attention and oculomotor demands. These experimental results were mirrored in the subjective reports given by participants, with some commenting that they initially found it challenging to communicate using eye gaze, but were able to develop strategies that allowed them to achieve joint attention. Our study indicates that for many autistic individuals, subtle difficulties using eye-gaze information persist well into adulthood.

scholarly journals Combining a Being Imitated Strategy With IBT Improves Basic Joint Attention Behaviors in Young Children With ASD

2022 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Birgitta Spjut Janson ◽  
Mikael Heimann ◽  
Felix-Sebastian Koch
Keyword(s):  
Joint Attention ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Treatment As Usual ◽  
Start Up ◽  
Early Implementation ◽  
Two Measures ◽  
Score Point

In the present study, we examined how an initial being imitated (BIm) strategy affected the development of initiating joint attention (IJA) among a group of children newly diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). One group received 3 months of BIm followed by 12 months of intensive behavior treatment (IBT) which equaled treatment as usual whereas a second group received IBT for the entire 15-month study period. We utilized two measures of IJA: an eye gaze and a gesture score (point and show). IJA did not change during the first 3 months of treatment, nor were any significant between-group differences noted. However, at the end of the 15-month-long intervention period, the BIm group used eye gaze significantly more often to initiate joint attention. No significant change was noted for the gesture score. These results suggest that an early implementation of a being imitated strategy might be useful as less resource intensive but beneficial “start-up” intervention when combined with IBT treatment as a follow-up.

scholarly journals The effect of non-communicative eye movements on joint attention

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (12) ◽  
pp. 2389-2402
Author(s):  
Nathan Caruana ◽  
Ayeh Alhasan ◽  
Kirilee Wagner ◽  
David M Kaplan ◽  
Alexandra Woolgar ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Joint Attention ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Visual Target ◽  
Random Search ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Social Mechanisms ◽  
Dynamic Interactions ◽  
Saccadic Reaction Times

Eye movements provide important signals for joint attention. However, those eye movements that indicate bids for joint attention often occur among non-communicative eye movements. This study investigated the influence of these non-communicative eye movements on subsequent joint attention responsivity. Participants played an interactive game with an avatar which required both players to search for a visual target on a screen. The player who discovered the target used their eyes to initiate joint attention. We compared participants’ saccadic reaction times (SRTs) to the avatar’s joint attention bids when they were preceded by non-communicative eye movements that predicted the location of the target (Predictive Search), did not predict the location of the target (Random Search), and when there were no non-communicative eye gaze movements prior to joint attention (No Search). We also included a control condition in which participants completed the same task, but responded to a dynamic arrow stimulus instead of the avatar’s eye movements. For both eye and arrow conditions, participants had slower SRTs in Random Search trials than No Search and Predictive Search trials. However, these effects were smaller for eyes than for arrows. These data suggest that joint attention responsivity for eyes is relatively stable to the presence and predictability of spatial information conveyed by non-communicative gaze. Contrastingly, random sequences of dynamic arrows had a much more disruptive impact on subsequent responsivity compared with predictive arrow sequences. This may reflect specialised social mechanisms and expertise for selectively responding to communicative eye gaze cues during dynamic interactions, which is likely facilitated by the integration of ostensive eye contact cues.

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