Abstract:

There is still surprisingly little agreement about what exactly joint attention is. Part of the problem is that joint attention is not a single process, but rather it includes a cluster of different cognitive skills. First, I outline a typology of joint attention levels (from followed to common, mutual, and shared attention), along with corresponding levels of common knowledge. A key distinction I make in all of this is second-personal vs. third-personal relations. I argue that it is useful to distinguish these levels because they have different consequences in terms of what kinds of interactions they support.

Second, I introduce two empirical studies with children that investigated the role of sharing attention in promoting cooperation. During the decision making phase, children's partner made either ostensive, communicative eye contact or looked non-communicatively at them. In Study, 1 the results showed that communicative looks produced an expectation of collaboration. In Study 2, children normatively protested when their partner did not cooperate, thus showing an understanding of the communicative looks as a commitment to cooperate. This is the first experimental evidence, in adults or children, that in the right context, communicative, but not non-communicative, looks can signal not only an expectation but also a commitment.

Further details:

Barbora Siposova is a Research Fellow in the Department of Psychology at the University of Warwick and a member of Dr Michael's Sense of Commitment project. Barbora has a background in developmental psychology. Her research topics include questions about the emergence of a sense of commitment in young children in various types of interactions. She is interested in the effects of eye contact, nonverbal communication, joint attention and common knowledge on coordination and prosocial behaviour.