A new look at joint attention and common knowledge and their role in coordination

There is still surprisingly little agreement about what exactly joint attention is. Part of the problem is that joint attention is not a single process, but rather it includes a cluster of different cognitive skills. First, I outline a typology of joint attention levels along with corresponding levels of common knowledge. I argue that it is useful to distinguish several levels because they have different consequences in terms of what kinds of interactions they support. Second, I introduce two empirical studies with children that investigated the role of sharing attention in promoting cooperation. During the decision making phase, children's partner made either ostensive, communicative eye contact or looked non-communicatively at them. In Study, 1 the results showed that communicative looks produced an expectation of collaboration. In Study 2, children normatively protested when their partner did not cooperate, thus showing an understanding of the communicative looks as a commitment to cooperate. This is the first experimental evidence, in adults or children, that in the right context, communicative, but not non-communicative, looks can signal not only an expectation but also a commitment.