Geeraerts et al. (2018). Individual differences in visual attention and self-regulation: A multimethod longitudinal study from infancy to toddlerhood.” – Article summary

Identifying reliable precursors of self-regulation early in development is important for early prevention of developmental problems. It appears as if longer fixation and less variation in fixation duration in infancy predicts better effortful control. Compliance in toddlerhood was not predicted by visual attention measures. Visual attentional measures in infancy may predict independent forms of self-regulation in toddlerhood.

Self-regulation refers to the ability to automatically or deliberately modulate affect, behaviour and cognition. Toddlerhood refers to a transitional phase during which the ability to inhibit dominant responses develops and external regulation is still required. Compliance refers to toddlers’ ability to display desirable behaviour in response to others. Effortful control refers to individuals’ ability to inhibit prepotent behaviours and perform less salient behaviours, detect errors and engage in planning. This is associated with compliance.

The development of self-regulation builds on simpler cognitive skills (e.g. visual attention). Visual attention refers to a set of cognitive operations by which the selection of relevant visual information and the exclusion of irrelevant visual information occurs. Attention processes consist of three neural networks which are closely related to self-regulation:

1. Alerting network
   This network is involved in achieving and maintaining attention.
2. Orienting network (most important during infancy)
   This network is involved in selecting input.
3. Executive attention network (most important after 3 – 4 years)
   This network is involved in executing control over the alerting and orienting network.

It is possible that a shorter orienting response reflects faster processing speed. However, this is challenged. The duration of a fixation is often conceptualized as an indicator of the time needed to process the visual information available at the point of fixation as the eye has many saccades to process a different area of the visual field (i.e. only small part of the retina has high acuity).

It is possible that longer fixations indicate better executive attention because of the enduring conflict between maintaining and disengaging attention. Less variation of fixation duration may indicate cognitive maturity. Diminished variation in fixation when watching dynamic stimuli in infancy relates to better concurrent cognitive control.

Disengagement of attention plays an important role in early state regulation. Attentional disengagement is an effective strategy for lowering negative affect in infancy. Prolonged disengagement is found in infants at risk for autism. Disengagement is unrelated to toddler effortful control or compliance.

Longer fixation duration and less variation in fixation duration predicts better effortful control but does not predict compliance.