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The role of eye-gaze in
understanding other minds
 British Journal of Developmental
Psychology 1 March 2003, vol. 21, no. 1,
pp. 33-43(11)
Pellicano E.; Rhodes
G.
Abstract:
From an early
age, infants are sensitive to eye-gaze direction. This study
examined Baron-Cohen's (1994, 1995) claim that the ability to use
eye-gaze plays a crucial role in the child's developing
understanding of other minds. Children aged 3 and 4 years
participated in a face-reading task, which assessed their capacity
to infer mental states from a character's direction of eye-gaze, and
in a false-belief task. As predicted, no child passed the
false-belief task without prior success on the face-reading task.
However, contrary to a central claim within Baron-Cohen's model of
mind-reading, presentation of an eye-gaze cue in the false-belief
task did not enhance children's performance. Furthermore, children
did not solely rely on eye-gaze as a cue, but used another
directional cue (an arrow) in inferring a character's desire and
intention. These results question the special role of eye-gaze in
the child's developing ability to mind-read.
Document Type: Research article ISSN: 0261-510X
| SICI (online): |
0261-510X(20030301)21:1L.33;1- | |
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