The Developmental Neuropsychology Lab, Department of Psychology, The Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar Ilan University Ramat Gan, Israel.
Front Hum Neurosci. 2012 Oct 25;6:286. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2012.00286. eCollection 2012.
Exchanging gazes with a social partner in response to an event in the environment is considered an effective means to direct attention, share affective experiences, and highlight a target in the environment. This behavior appears during infancy and plays an important role in children's learning and in shaping their socio-emotional development. It has been suggested that cultural values of the community affect socio-emotional development through attentional dynamics of social reference (Rogoff et al., 1993). Maturational processes of brain-circuits have been found to mediate socio-cultural learning and the behavioral manifestation of cultural norms starting at preschool age (Nelson and Guyer, 2011). The aim of the current study was to investigate the relations between cultural ecology levels and children's joint attention (JA). Initiation of JA bids was studied empirically as a function of the level of social load of the target toy (3 levels), the community level of adherence to traditional values (3 levels), parental education (2 levels), and gender. Sixty-two kindergarten aged children were enrolled in a structured toy-exploration task, during which they were presented with toys of various social loads, with social agents (i.e., mother and experimenter) present nearby, and non-social distracters presented intermittently. Measurements included the child's number of JA bids and the extent of positive affect. Analysis of variance indicated that the child's initiation of JA toward the social partner was affected by all levels of cultural ecology (i.e., toy's social load, adherence to tradition values, parental education, gender), thus supporting the study's hypotheses. The effects were such that overall, children, particularly girls' JA initiation was augmented in social toys and moderated by the socio-cultural variables. These results suggest that cultural ecology is related to children's JA, thereby scaffolding initiation of social sharing cues between children and adults. JA plays a role in adjusting children's internal representations of their respective ecological environment.
与社会伙伴交换目光以响应环境中的事件被认为是一种有效的注意导向方式，可以分享情感体验，并突出环境中的目标。这种行为出现在婴儿期，并在儿童的学习和塑造其社会情感发展中起着重要作用。有人认为，社区的文化价值观通过社会参照的注意力动态影响社会情感发展（Rogoff 等人，1993 年）。已经发现，大脑回路的成熟过程介导了社会文化学习以及从学龄前开始的文化规范的行为表现（Nelson 和 Guyer，2011 年）。本研究的目的是调查文化生态水平与儿童共同注意（JA）之间的关系。JA 发起的实证研究作为目标玩具的社会负荷水平（3 个水平）、社区对传统价值观的坚持程度（3 个水平）、父母教育（2 个水平）和性别等因素的函数。62 名幼儿园年龄的儿童参与了一项结构化的玩具探索任务，在该任务中，他们被展示了各种社会负荷的玩具，附近有社会代理（即母亲和实验者），并间歇性地出现非社会干扰者。测量包括儿童的 JA 出价次数和积极情绪的程度。方差分析表明，儿童对社会伙伴的 JA 发起受到文化生态系统所有水平的影响（即玩具的社会负荷、对传统价值观的坚持、父母教育、性别），从而支持了研究假设。这些影响是，总体而言，尤其是女孩，在社会玩具中，JA 发起会增强，并且会受到社会文化变量的调节。这些结果表明，文化生态与儿童的 JA 有关，从而为儿童和成人之间的社会共享线索的发起提供了支持。JA 在调整儿童对各自生态环境的内部表征方面发挥作用。
