The importance of eyes in social interaction

During the last three months of their first year, newborns learn something that is extremely important for social interaction: they learn to follow an adult's eyes, a step scientists consider essential for understanding language.

Psychologists Rechele Brooks and Andrew Meltzoff of Washington University have found out that this stage of development begins more or less during the tenth or eleventh month of life. They have also discovered that the newborns who are better at following head movements before their first birthday, also understand almost twice as many words by the time they are 18 months old.

In an article published in the magazine Developmental Science, Brooks and Meltzoff describe how newborns use head movement. Three years ago, researchers demonstrated that babies of 12-18 months find it easier to look at an object if the other person is looking at it with his/her eyes open rather than closed.

'Babies', Brooks commented, 'soon learn to look in the same direction as an adult. It's not an easy task, especially in the home where there are many distractions. We have discovered that at 9 months, babies start to do it by following head movements. At 10-11 months, they follow both the head and the eyes. The eyes add important information and babies follow head movement more easily if the eyes are open'.

Psychologists then verified children's understanding of language and they have associated it with the ability to follow an adult's eyes. Newborns who were able to follow the eyes of the researchers and make simple sounds at 10-11 months, at 18 months they understood an average of 337 words, compared to an average 195 words by the others.

(Source: Le Scienze)