Exploring the social origins of attention and executive functions: A cultural perspective from parent-infant interactions.

Abstract

Attention regulation is foundational to early development and underpins the emergence of executive function. The present study draws on the Learning by Observing and Pitching In framework to investigate how Bangladeshi parents in a resource-constrained urban community scaffold infants' attention and emerging executive function. To contextualize Bangladeshi parent-infant interactions, we included a descriptive comparison with families of mid-socioeconomic status from Boston, United States. We coded parent-infant interactions at 12 months along two dimensions of parental scaffolding (modality: elicitation of verbal or nonverbal attentional engagement; shared engagement: following or redirecting) and characterized infants' joint-attention initiation and response. Within the Bangladeshi cohort, infants' attention orienting was assessed using a disengagement eye-tracking paradigm, and working memory and inhibition at 24 months were measured using the Spin-the-Pots and Glitter Wand tasks. The findings indicate that Bangladeshi parents elicited more nonverbal engagement and redirected more often than U.S. parents and Bangladeshi infants more often initiated joint attention nonverbally and less often verbally than U.S. infants. Within the Bangladeshi cohort, parental elicitation of nonverbal engagement positively related to 12-month attention orienting. Parental following at 12 months positively predicted 24-month working memory, and parental redirecting positively predicted 24-month inhibition. These findings extend the Learning by Observing and Pitching In framework to a developmental period and cultural context in which it has not previously been examined and underscore that the developmental implications of scaffolding practices depend on the cultural ecology in which they unfold. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).