How Eye Gaze Feedback Changes Parent-Child Joint Attention in Shared Storybook Reading? An Eye-Tracking Intervention Study

This paper studies how eye-tracking can be used to measure and facilitate joint attention in parent-child interaction. Joint attention is critical for social learning activities such as parent-child shared storybook reading. There is a disassociation of attention when the adult reads texts while the child looks at pictures. We hypothesize the lack of joint attention limits children‟s opportunity to learn print-related skills. Traditional research paradigm does not measure joint attention in real-time during shared storybook reading. In the current study, we simultaneously tracked eye movements of a parent and his/her child with two eye-trackers. We also provided real-time feedback to the parent where the child was looking at, and vice versa. Changes of dyads ‟ reading behaviors before and after the joint attention intervention were measured from both eye movements and video records. Baseline data show little joint attention in parent-child shared book reading. The real-time eye-gaze feedback significantly changes parent-child interaction and improves learning. Author Keywords Joint attention, eye-tracking, eye gaze, inter-person