The Role of Polyperspective Representations in Joint Attention Processes

Abstract

The aim of our work was to test the hypothesis that one's identification of objects of attention in an observed individual depends on his/her understanding of the context of a communicative situation based on the comparison of the participants' points of view. In the first experimental study the subjects (N=74) carried out visual search for objects of attention of participants of non-verbal communication scenes with/without information on the communication context provided, and with short/prolonged display of information for assessing gaze direction of the participants. Understanding the context resulted in a higher efficiency of identification and saccadic detection of the participants' objects of attention in the subjects, regardless of their access to the information on gaze direction. In the second experiment the subjects (N=32), after watching videos of communication episodes, were asked to search for changes of different objects in the scenes. Those subjects who had a clear understanding of the context of communication first of all noticed the changes in the future objects of attention of the participants, in spite of the absence of any 'hints' like head or eye orientation. The outcomes of the research are discussed within the framework of concepts focusing on the significance of polyperspective representations for the understanding of communicative signals

Keywords

• theories of reference
• joint attention
• non-verbal communication
• visual perception