From early ages, gaze acts as a cue to infer the interests, behaviours, thoughts and emotions of social partners. Despite sharing attentional properties with other non-social directional stimuli, such as arrows, gaze produces unique effects. A spatial interference task revealed this dissociation. The direction of arrows was identified faster on congruent than on incongruent direction-location trials. Conversely, gaze produced a reversed congruency effect (RCE), with faster identifications on incongruent than congruent trials. To determine the emergence of these gaze-specific attentional mechanisms, 214 Spanish children (4–17 years) divided into 6 age groups, performed the aforementioned task across three experiments. Results showed stimulus-specific developmental trajectories. Whereas the standard effect of arrows was unaffected by age, gaze shifted from an arrow-like effect at age 4 to a gaze-specific RCE at age 12. The orienting mechanisms shared by gaze and arrows are already present in 4-year olds and, throughout childhood, gaze becomes a special social cue with additional attentional properties. Besides orienting attention to a direction, as arrows would do, gaze might orient attention towards a specific object that would be attentionally selected. Such additional components may not fully develop until adolescence. Understanding gaze-specific attentional mechanisms may be crucial for children with atypical socio-cognitive development.

中文翻译：

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什么凝视添加到箭头：儿童和青春期对凝视与箭头的注意力反应变化

从很小的时候开始，凝视就充当了推断社交伙伴的兴趣、行为、思想和情感的线索。尽管与其他非社交定向刺激（例如箭头）共享注意力属性，但凝视会产生独特的效果。空间干涉任务揭示了这种分离。在一致的方向上比在不一致的方向定位试验中更快地确定箭头的方向。相反，凝视产生反向一致性效应（RCE），对不一致的识别比一致的试验更快。为了确定这些凝视特异性注意机制的出现，214 名西班牙儿童（4-17 岁）分为 6 个年龄组，在三个实验中执行了上述任务。结果显示了刺激特异性的发展轨迹。箭的标准效果不受年龄的影响，凝视从 4 岁时的箭头状效应转变为 12 岁时的凝视特异性 RCE。凝视和箭头共有的定向机制已经存在于 4 岁的儿童中，并且在整个童年时期，凝视成为一种特殊的社交暗示注意属性。除了像箭头那样将注意力定向到一个方向之外，凝视还可以将注意力定向到将被注意力选择的特定对象。这些额外的成分可能要到青春期才能完全发育。了解凝视特定的注意机制对于具有非典型社会认知发展的儿童可能至关重要。凝视成为一种特殊的社交线索，具有额外的注意力特性。除了像箭头那样将注意力定向到一个方向之外，凝视还可以将注意力定向到将被注意力选择的特定对象。这些额外的成分可能要到青春期才能完全发育。了解凝视特定的注意机制对于具有非典型社会认知发展的儿童可能至关重要。凝视成为一种特殊的社交线索，具有额外的注意力特性。除了像箭头那样将注意力定向到一个方向之外，凝视还可以将注意力定向到将被注意力选择的特定对象。这些额外的成分可能要到青春期才能完全发育。了解凝视特定的注意机制对于具有非典型社会认知发展的儿童可能至关重要。