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Theories of visual attention suggest a cascading development of subfunctions such as alertness, spatial orientation, attention to object features, and endogenous control. Here, we aimed to track infants' visual developmental steps from a primarily exogenously to more endogenously controlled processing style during their first months of life. In this repeated measures study, 51 infants participated in seven fortnightly assessments at postterm ages of 4-16 weeks. Infants were presented with the same set of static and dynamic paired comparison stimuli in each assessment. Visual behavior was evaluated by a newly introduced scoring scheme. Our results confirmed the suggested visual developmental hierarchy and clearly demonstrated the suitability of our scoring scheme for documenting developmental changes in visual attention during early infancy. Besides the general ontogenetic course of development, we also discuss intra- and interindividual differences which may affect single assessments, and highlight the importance of repeated measurements for reliable evaluation of developmental changes.

Are intelligent, creative, and emotionally competent people more desirable? Evolution-based theories and studies on the ideal partner suggest that they are. We aimed to assess whether verbal, numerical, and spatial intelligence, creativity, and intra- and interpersonal emotional competence are associated with higher real-life mate appeal. In speed dates, 87 women and 88 men met up to 14 members of the opposite sex (2188 observations). While only one measured ability—women’s creativity—was significantly associated with mate appeal, ability perceptions by speed-dating partners could broadly predict mate appeal. Effects of perceived and measured abilities were substantially reduced after controlling for physical attractiveness. These results suggest that the investigated abilities play a lesser role in initial attraction than proposed in the past.

Who is the best judge of a person’s abilities—the person, a knowledgeable informant or strangers just met in a 3-min speed date? To test this, we collected ability measures as well as self-, informant- and stranger-estimates of verbal, numerical and spatial intelligence, creativity, and intra- and interpersonal emotional competence from 175 young adults. While people themselves were the most accurate about the majority of their abilities, their verbal and spatial intelligence were only estimable by informants or strangers, respectively. These differences in accuracy were not accompanied by differences in the domains’ relevance to people’s self-worth or observability to strangers. These results indicate self-other knowledge asymmetries for abilities but raise questions about the reasons behind these asymmetries.