The Rapid Development of Explicit Gaze Judgment Ability at 3 Years __________________________________________________________________ Children's Explicit Gaze Judgment Click Here to View Linked References

Two studies examined development of the ability to judge what another person is looking at. In Study 1, 54 2to 4-year-olds judged where someone was looking in real-life, photograph, and drawing formats. A minority of 2-year-olds but a majority of older children passed all tasks, suggesting the ability arises around 3 years. Study 2 examined the fine-grained gaze judgment of 76 3to 6-year-olds and 15 adults, using gaze differences of 10° and 15°. Development of gaze judgment was gradual, from chance at 3 years to near-adult level performance at 6 years. Although performance was better when a congruent head turn was included, 3-year-olds were still at chance on 10° head-turn trials. The findings suggest that the ability to explicitly judge gaze is novel at 3 years and develops slowly thereafter. It therefore does not develop out of earlier gaze-following. General implications for the evolution and development of gaze processing are discussed. * 3) Blinded Manuscript (WITHOUT Author Details) Click here to view linked References Children’s explicit gaze judgment 2 The rapid development of explicit gaze judgment ability at 3 years