Undergraduate Research & Scholarships

Jacqueline Woo Humanities and Social Science

Exploring Joint Attention in Infants in Relation to Locomotion and Language

My research aims to examine the development of joint attention in infants. Joint visual attention (JVA) refers to the ability to share attention to a common object with another partner and is vital to an infants capacity to learn, as it facilitates various kinds of communication. JVA has been connected to both language and social-emotional development.
My study explores two major issues in the development of joint visual attention. First, it investigates what brings about infants increased ability of responding to and initiating joint attention beginning the second year of life. Second, it looks at whether such changes are correlated to early language development.

Message To Sponsor

I am so happy to have been selected to be a part of SURF and to take my involvement in infant developmental research one step further. I would like to express my gratitude to the Pergo Foundation for providing me the opportunity to pursue my interest in psychological development on a topic that is not only critical in understanding humans, but also on a subject I am so passionate about. I would also like to thank Professor Joseph Campos and Minxuan He, Ph.D. for introducing and encouraging me to pursue my interest in infant psychological development as part of the UC Berkeley Infant Studies Center team for the past two years.