# Lack of concordance among infant social attention measures

## TL;DR

This study finds that different measures of social attention in infants do not align, suggesting they may not be part of a single unified ability.

## Contribution

The study reveals that common measures of infant social attention lack concordance and functional connection.

## Key findings

- No significant associations were found among the three gaze measures used.
- Only eye preference was uniquely linked to communicative abilities in infants.
- The findings suggest social attention may consist of distinct, unrelated behaviors.

## Abstract

Infants’ tendency to focus on socially relevant cues is commonly referred to as ‘social attention’ and is often conceptualized as a unified construct. However, few studies have examined the concordance among measures that fall under this label. In this study, we assessed 50 ten-month-old infants using three common measures of social visual attention: eye (versus mouth) preference, gaze following, and face preference (versus non-social objects). We also examined their association with concurrent parent-rated socio-communicative abilities. No significant associations were found among the gaze measures. Notably, only eye preference was uniquely associated with communicative abilities (β = 0.364, p = 0.018), while the other gaze measure showed no such relationship. These findings suggest that what is commonly referred to as ‘social attention’ reflects a set of functionally distinct and seemingly unrelated behaviors, highlighting the need to re-evaluate its conceptualization as a unified construct in early development.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-026-36807-5.