Nursery World - Getting to the point of early brain development

Young children are more likely to follow the direction of a pointing finger than other signs, according to psychologists, who are keen to hear from nurseries to put their theory into practice.

Researchers from the University of Lincoln found that younger children’s eye movements responded faster when looking at pictures of a pointing finger than at those of arrows, or eyes gazing in a particular direction.

Using eye-tracking technology, scientists observed the speed children aged three to ten reacted to different visual cues while playing a specially-designed computer game.

The children were told to follow the movements of a cartoon character called Buzzy Bee, and not to pay attention to ‘directional cues’, ie. following the eyes, arrows and pointing fingers also flashing on the screen.

As Buzzy Bee jumped around eye trackers recorded where the child’s gaze followed, as well as how quickly and accurately it followed Buzzy, when for example, an arrow, pointed the wrong way.

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