AUTHOR=Shic Frederick , Dommer Kelsey Jackson , Benton Jessica , Li Beibin , Snider James C. , Nyström Par , Falck-Ytter Terje TITLE=Remote, tablet-based assessment of gaze following: a nationwide infant twin study JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology VOLUME=14 YEAR=2023 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1223267 DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1223267 ISSN=1664-1078 ABSTRACT=Introduction

Much of our understanding of infant psychological development relies on an in-person, laboratory-based assessment. This limits research generalizability, scalability, and equity in access. One solution is the development of new, remotely deployed assessment tools that do not require real-time experimenter supervision.

Methods

The current nationwide (Sweden) infant twin study assessed participants remotely via their caregiver's tablets (N = 104, ages 3 to 17 months). To anchor our findings in previous research, we used a gaze-following task where experimental and age effects are well established.

Results

Closely mimicking results from conventional eye tracking, we found that a full head movement elicited more gaze following than isolated eye movements. Furthermore, predictably, we found that older infants followed gaze more frequently than younger infants. Finally, while we found no indication of genetic contributions to gaze-following accuracy, the latency to disengage from the gaze cue and orient toward a target was significantly more similar in monozygotic twins than in dizygotic twins, an indicative of heritability.

Discussion

Together, these results highlight the potential of remote assessment of infants' psychological development, which can improve generalizability, inclusion, and scalability in developmental research.