Infants' visual preference for expansive and contractive body postures: an eye-tracking study

Nonverbal communication is pivotal in early social and emotional development, with body postures serving as crucial cues. While extensive research has explored infants' recognition of emotions from facial expressions, a significant gap remains in understanding their visual inclinations towards body postures. Despite some studies on adults, there has been a lack of investigation into how infants respond to deliberate displays, particularly using eye-tracking methods. This research addresses this gap by examining whether infants exhibit a preference for expansive postures over contractive ones. A sample of 18 infants aged 12–24 months participated in the study, with their gaze patterns measured across 36 trials featuring images of human and bird figures in expansive or contractive postures. Results revealed a preference for expansive postures, indicating that these postures are more visually engaging for infants. However, no significant preference was observed between human and bird stimuli, nor was there an interaction between posture type and stimulus type. In addition, preference for expansive postures over contractive ones was only found in male pictures, not in female pictures. These findings suggest that infants are inherently sensitive to expansive body language, which may play a role in their early social cognition and emotional development.