Social Attention

The set of behaviours, motivations, and perceptual processes involved in directing and coordinating attention toward other people during social interaction. Social attention includes orienting toward others, maintaining awareness of their position and gaze direction, and using this information to initiate, sustain, or shift interactions. For children with blindness, developing social attention is particularly challenging because much of this skill is typically acquired through visual observation during early childhood. Technologies like spatial audio systems can provide alternative perceptual channels to support the development of social attention in non-visual ways.