Foraging and inertia: understanding the developmental dynamics of overt visual attention

• Published in: Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews 2024-12, p.105991, Article 105991
• Main Authors: Wass, S.V., Perapoch Amadó, M., Northrop, T., Marriott Haresign, I., Phillips, E.A.M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: attention; attention control; endogenous control; fixation duration; looking behaviour
• ISSN: 0149-7634; 1873-7528; 1873-7528
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105991

During early life, we develop the ability to choose what we focus on and what we ignore, allowing us to regulate perception and action in complex environments. But how does this change influence how we spontaneously allocate attention to real-world objects during free behaviour? Here, in this narrative review, we examine this question by considering the time dynamics of spontaneous overt visual attention, and how these develop through early life. Even in early childhood, visual attention shifts occur both periodically and aperiodically. These reorientations become more internally controlled as development progresses. Increasingly with age, attention states also develop self-sustaining attractor dynamics, known as attention inertia, in which the longer an attention episode lasts, the more the likelihood increases of its continuing. These self-sustaining dynamics are driven by amplificatory interactions between engagement, comprehension, and distractibility. We consider why experimental measures show decline in sustained attention over time, while real-world visual attention often demonstrates the opposite pattern. Finally, we discuss multi-stable attention states, where both hypo-arousal (mind-wandering) and hyper-arousal (fragmentary attention) may also show self-sustaining attractor dynamics driven by moment-by-moment amplificatory child-environment interactions; and we consider possible applications of this work, and future directions. •We consider the time dynamics of spontaneous overt visual attention during early life•From early development, shifts of attention are triggered both periodically and aperiodically•The timings of spontaneous attention reorientations become progressively more internally controlled•As development progresses, attention states also develop non-linear attractor dynamics•We also discuss the possibility of multi-stable attention states.