凝視方向具有重要的社會認知意義，而且被證實能引起他人注意力的自動化轉移。本研究的目的欲了解凝視方向引發的自動化注意力轉移是否會因年齡的發展而產生差異。研究對象為正常發展之9-10 歲的兒童，13-16 歲的青少年和19-25 歲的成人，每個年齡層各33 位參與者。他們判斷一個星號出現的位置，而該位置有一半的機率被一張卡通圖案臉凝視，另一半不被凝視。眼睛凝視線索到星號出現為止的時間共分為200 、1,200 和2,400 毫秒等三種。結果顯示，三組在200 毫秒間距時都有顯著的線索效應，其中兒童的線索效應顯著大於其他兩組。此外，在1,200 毫秒時，兒童產生注意力迴向抑制。兒童對凝視線索更敏銳，可能與該時期的神經發展的改變有關。青少年則表現出與成人相似的促進和抑制作用，顯示凝視方向引發的注意力轉移效果在青少年時期已與成人無異。

Gaze could induce automatic orienting and play a crucial role in social cognition. The goal of this study was to explore whether the effect of gaze induced orienting varies with age. Three groups of typical developed participants were recruited: 9-10 year-old children, 13-16 year-old adolescents, and 19-25 year-old adults. Each group had thirty-three participants. The participants located a target while a schematic face was presented on the center of the screen. Half of the trials were valid in which the face gazed at the target, while the other half trials were invalid in which the face gazed away from the target. The gaze cue was presented 200, 1,200, or 2,400ms before the onset of the target. Results showed that, at 200ms SOA, all three groups responded faster to valid targets than invalid targets, while the cuing effect for children was larger than that for the other two groups. In addition, children showed significant inhibition of return at 1,200ms. Thus, our data suggested that children are more sensitive to gaze cues; this finding can be supported by neural development of gaze related brain areas at this age. Furthermore, adolescents showed similar results with adults, suggesting that their attentional mechanisms to gaze cues are relatively more adult-like.