The Neurodevelopmental Origins of Eye Gaze Perception

We begin this chapter by addressing three issues concerning the brain basis of eye-gaze processing in adults. First, which regions of the brain are activated by viewing the eyes of a person? Second, are these activated regions related to those involved in the perception of movement in general? Third, which of these regions are also activated during general face processing? In the next section of the chapter we will turn to development, and focus on behavioural and neural evidence pertaining to two different aspects of eye gaze processing: perceiving the direction of another’s eye gaze, and acting on another’s eye gaze. Finally, we will attempt to synthesise data on the development of eye gaze perception, and speculate on their relation to the available neuroscience data.