Chapter 11 Covert Orienting in Young Children

Visual orienting serves several functions for the developing child, including automatically alerting her to salient events, actively preparing him to encounter events that are expected, and facilitating the selective processing of information in the visual field. Research with adults has revealed an important distinction between overt (i.e., shifts of attention accompanied by shifts in gaze) and covert orienting (i.e., shifts of attention independent of shifts in gaze). Covert orienting is of particular interest to developmental researchers because it allows attention to be studied independently from the muscular and motoric components involved in overt orienting. The purpose of the present chapter is to review recent research, summarize important unanswered questions, and suggest future directions for research on the development of covert orienting.