Protracted development of gaze behaviour

Bibliographic Data

ID4615385
AuthorsMarcel Linka (0000-0003-4586-6804, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, corresponding author), Harun Karimpur (0000-0001-7981-0943, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen), Benjamin De Haas (0000-0003-1722-7757, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen)
Year2025
Volume9
Issue9
Pages1887-1897
Publication date2025-06-05
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueNature Human Behaviour (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2397-3374 • E-ISSN: 2397-3374
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1038/s41562-025-02191-9
PMID40473802
OpenAlexW4411068285
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited69

How does scene viewing develop? Previous evidence is limited and suggests that viewing behaviour may be adult-like from about eight years old. Here we present data from n = 6,720 participants from 5 to 72 years old, freely viewing 40 natural scenes. We found that the development of scene viewing is surprisingly protracted. Semantic salience for social features continuously changes until adolescence, and text salience increases over the first two decades of life. Basic oculomotor biases towards the image centre and along the horizontal meridian develop until adolescence, matching developmental changes in visual sensitivity and cortex. Finally, while the tendency for visual exploration continuously increases, fixation patterns become less idiosyncratic and more canonical throughout adolescence. These findings show that fundamental aspects of adult gaze take up to two decades of continuous development and push individuals towards more canonical viewing patterns. We suggest that development is key to understanding the general mechanisms of active vision

Cognitive psychology · Developmental psychology · Eye movement · Gaze · Population · Face Recognition and Perception · Medicine · Neuroscience · Olfactory and Sensory Function Studies · Psychology · Visual Attention and Saliency Detection

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access