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Ge Y, Yu Y, Huang S, Huang X, Wang L, Jiang Y. Life motion signals bias the perception of apparent motion direction. Br J Psychol 2024; 115:115-128. [PMID: 37623746 DOI: 10.1111/bjop.12680] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/09/2022] [Accepted: 07/17/2023] [Indexed: 08/26/2023]
Abstract
Walking direction conveyed by biological motion (BM) cues, which humans are highly sensitive to since birth, can elicit involuntary shifts of attention to enhance the detection of static targets. Here, we demonstrated that such intrinsic sensitivity to walking direction could also modulate the direction perception of simultaneously presented dynamic stimuli. We showed that the perceived direction of apparent motion was biased towards the walking direction even though observers had been informed in advance that the walking direction of BM did not predict the apparent motion direction. In particular, rightward BM cues had an advantage over leftward BM cues in altering the perception of motion direction. Intriguingly, this perceptual bias disappeared when BM cues were shown inverted, or when the critical biological characteristics were removed from the cues. Critically, both the perceptual direction bias and the rightward advantage persisted even when only local BM cues were presented without any global configuration. Furthermore, the rightward advantage was found to be specific to social cues (i.e., BM), as it vanished when non-social cues (i.e., arrows) were utilized. Taken together, these findings support the existence of a specific processing mechanism for life motion signals and shed new light on their influences in a dynamic environment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yiping Ge
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing, China
| | - Yiwen Yu
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing, China
| | - Suqi Huang
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing, China
| | - Xinyi Huang
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing, China
| | - Li Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing, China
| | - Yi Jiang
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing, China
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2
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Huang S, Ge Y, Wang L, Jiang Y. Life motion signals modulate visual working memory. Psychon Bull Rev 2024; 31:380-388. [PMID: 37620631 DOI: 10.3758/s13423-023-02362-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 08/07/2023] [Indexed: 08/26/2023]
Abstract
Previous research has demonstrated that biological motion (BM) cues can induce a reflexive attentional orienting effect, a phenomenon referred to as social attention. However, it remains undetermined whether BM cues can further affect higher-order cognitive processes, such as visual working memory (WM). By combining a modified central pre-cueing paradigm with a traditional WM change detection task, the current study investigated whether the walking direction of BM, as a non-predictive central cue, could modulate the encoding process of WM. Results revealed a significant improvement in WM performance for the items appearing at the location cued by the walking direction of BM. The observed effect disappeared when the BM cues were shown inverted, or when the critical biological characteristics of the cues were removed. Crucially, this effect could be extended to upright feet motion cues without global configuration, reflecting the key role of local BM signals in modulating WM. More importantly, such a BM-induced modulation effect was not observed with inanimate motion cues, although these cues can also elicit attentional effects. Our findings suggest that the attentional effect induced by life motion signals can penetrate to higher-order cognitive processes, and provide compelling evidence for the existence of "life motion detector" in the human brain from a high-level cognitive function perspective.
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Affiliation(s)
- Suqi Huang
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 16 Lincui Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100101, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing, 100049, China
- Chinese Institute for Brain Research, 26 Science Park Road, Beijing, 102206, China
| | - Yiping Ge
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 16 Lincui Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100101, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing, 100049, China
- Chinese Institute for Brain Research, 26 Science Park Road, Beijing, 102206, China
| | - Li Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 16 Lincui Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100101, China.
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing, 100049, China.
- Chinese Institute for Brain Research, 26 Science Park Road, Beijing, 102206, China.
| | - Yi Jiang
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 16 Lincui Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100101, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing, 100049, China
- Chinese Institute for Brain Research, 26 Science Park Road, Beijing, 102206, China
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3
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Dalmaso M. Foot cues can elicit covert orienting of attention. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2023; 87:2440-2448. [PMID: 37059960 PMCID: PMC10497641 DOI: 10.1007/s00426-023-01827-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/24/2022] [Accepted: 04/06/2023] [Indexed: 04/16/2023]
Abstract
Humans tend to orient their attentional resources towards the same location indicated by spatial signals coming from the others, such as pointing fingers, head turns, or eye-gaze. Here, two experiments investigated whether an attentional orienting response can be elicited even by foot cues. Participants were asked to localize a peripheral target while a task-irrelevant picture of a naked human foot, oriented leftward or rightward, was presented on the centre of the screen. The foot appeared in a neutral posture (i.e., standing upright) or an action-oriented posture (i.e., walking/running). In Experiment 1, neutral and action-oriented feet were presented in two distinct blocks, while in Experiment 2 they were presented intermixed. The results showed that the action-oriented foot, but not the neutral one, elicited an orienting response, though this only emerged in Experiment 2. This work suggests that attentional shifts can be induced by action-oriented foot cues, as long as these stimuli are made contextually salient.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mario Dalmaso
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padova, Via Venezia 8, 35131, Padua, Italy.
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4
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Ben-Ami S, Gupta P, Yadav M, Shah P, Talwar G, Paswan S, Ganesh S, Troje NF, Sinha P. Human (but not animal) motion can be recognized at first sight - After treatment for congenital blindness. Neuropsychologia 2022; 174:108307. [PMID: 35752267 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2022.108307] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/01/2021] [Revised: 05/27/2022] [Accepted: 06/13/2022] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
The long-standing nativist vs. empiricist debate asks a foundational question in epistemology - does our knowledge arise through experience or is it available innately? Studies that probe the sensitivity of newborns and patients recovering from congenital blindness are central in informing this dialogue. One of the most robust sensitivities our visual system possesses is to 'biological motion' - the movement patterns of humans and other vertebrates. Various biological motion perception skills (such as distinguishing between movement of human and non-human animals, or between upright and inverted human movement) become evident within the first months of life. The mechanisms of acquiring these capabilities, and specifically the contribution of visual experience to their development, are still under debate. We had the opportunity to directly examine the role of visual experience in biological motion perception, by testing what level of sensitivity is present immediately upon onset of sight following years of congenital visual deprivation. Two congenitally blind patients who underwent sight-restorative cataract-removal surgery late in life (at the ages of 7 and 20 years) were tested before and after sight restoration. The patients were shown displays of walking humans, pigeons, and cats, and asked to describe what they saw. Visual recognition of movement patterns emerged immediately upon eye-opening following surgery, when the patients spontaneously began to identify human, but not animal, biological motion. This recognition ability was evident contemporaneously for upright and inverted human displays. These findings suggest that visual recognition of human motion patterns may not critically depend on visual experience, as it was evident upon first exposure to un-obstructed sight in patients with very limited prior visual exposure, and furthermore, was not limited to the typical (upright) orientation of humans in real-life settings.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shlomit Ben-Ami
- MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Cambridge, MA, USA; Sagol School of Neuroscience, School of Psychological Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel; Minducate Science of Learning Research and Innovation Center, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
| | - Priti Gupta
- The Project Prakash Center, Delhi, India; Amarnath and Shashi Khosla School of Information Technology, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, India
| | | | | | | | - Saroj Paswan
- The Project Prakash Center, Delhi, India; Department of Ophthalmology, Dr. Shroff's Charity Eye Hospital, Delhi, India
| | - Suma Ganesh
- Department of Ophthalmology, Dr. Shroff's Charity Eye Hospital, Delhi, India
| | | | - Pawan Sinha
- MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Cambridge, MA, USA
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Bánki A, de Eccher M, Falschlehner L, Hoehl S, Markova G. Comparing Online Webcam- and Laboratory-Based Eye-Tracking for the Assessment of Infants' Audio-Visual Synchrony Perception. Front Psychol 2022; 12:733933. [PMID: 35087442 PMCID: PMC8787048 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.733933] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/30/2021] [Accepted: 12/06/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Online data collection with infants raises special opportunities and challenges for developmental research. One of the most prevalent methods in infancy research is eye-tracking, which has been widely applied in laboratory settings to assess cognitive development. Technological advances now allow conducting eye-tracking online with various populations, including infants. However, the accuracy and reliability of online infant eye-tracking remain to be comprehensively evaluated. No research to date has directly compared webcam-based and in-lab eye-tracking data from infants, similarly to data from adults. The present study provides a direct comparison of in-lab and webcam-based eye-tracking data from infants who completed an identical looking time paradigm in two different settings (in the laboratory or online at home). We assessed 4-6-month-old infants (n = 38) in an eye-tracking task that measured the detection of audio-visual asynchrony. Webcam-based and in-lab eye-tracking data were compared on eye-tracking and video data quality, infants' viewing behavior, and experimental effects. Results revealed no differences between the in-lab and online setting in the frequency of technical issues and participant attrition rates. Video data quality was comparable between settings in terms of completeness and brightness, despite lower frame rate and resolution online. Eye-tracking data quality was higher in the laboratory than online, except in case of relative sample loss. Gaze data quantity recorded by eye-tracking was significantly lower than by video in both settings. In valid trials, eye-tracking and video data captured infants' viewing behavior uniformly, irrespective of setting. Despite the common challenges of infant eye-tracking across experimental settings, our results point toward the necessity to further improve the precision of online eye-tracking with infants. Taken together, online eye-tracking is a promising tool to assess infants' gaze behavior but requires careful data quality control. The demographic composition of both samples differed from the generic population on caregiver education: our samples comprised caregivers with higher-than-average education levels, challenging the notion that online studies will per se reach more diverse populations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anna Bánki
- Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Martina de Eccher
- Department for Psychology of Language, Georg-Elias-Müller-Institut für Psychologie, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Lilith Falschlehner
- Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Stefanie Hoehl
- Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Gabriela Markova
- Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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6
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Peng Y, Lu H, Johnson SP. Infant perception of causal motion produced by humans and inanimate objects. Infant Behav Dev 2021; 64:101615. [PMID: 34333261 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101615] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/09/2021] [Revised: 06/28/2021] [Accepted: 07/19/2021] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Abstract
Both the movements of people and inanimate objects are intimately bound up with physical causality. Furthermore, in contrast to object movements, causal relationships between limb movements controlled by humans and their body displacements uniquely reflect agency and goal-directed actions in support of social causality. To investigate the development of sensitivity to causal movements, we examined the looking behavior of infants between 9 and 18 months of age when viewing movements of humans and objects. We also investigated whether individual differences in gender and gross motor functions may impact the development of the visual preferences for causal movements. In Experiment 1, infants were presented with walking stimuli showing either normal body translation or a "moonwalk" that reversed the horizontal motion of body translations. In Experiment 2, infants were presented with unperformable actions beyond infants' gross motor functions (i.e., long jump) either with or without ecologically valid body displacement. In Experiment 3, infants were presented with rolling movements of inanimate objects that either complied with or violated physical causality. We found that female infants showed longer looking times to normal walking stimuli than to moonwalk stimuli, but did not differ in their looking time to movements of inanimate objects and unperformable actions. In contrast, male infants did not show sensitivity to causal movement for either category. Additionally, female infants looked longer at social stimuli of human actions than male infants. Under the tested circumstances, our findings indicate that female infants have developed a sensitivity to causal consistency between limb movements and body translations of biological motion, only for actions with previous visual and motor exposures, and demonstrate a preference toward social information.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yujia Peng
- University of California, Los Angeles, United States.
| | - Hongjing Lu
- University of California, Los Angeles, United States
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7
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Yu Y, Ji H, Wang L, Jiang Y. Cross-modal social attention triggered by biological motion cues. J Vis 2020; 20:21. [PMID: 33112938 PMCID: PMC7594627 DOI: 10.1167/jov.20.10.21] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Previous research has demonstrated that biological motion (BM) cues can induce reflexive attentional orienting. This BM-triggered social attention has hitherto only been investigated within visual modality. It remains unknown whether and to what extent social attention induced by BM cues can occur across different sensory modalities. By introducing auditory stimuli to a modified central cueing paradigm, we showed that observers responded significantly faster to auditory targets presented in the walking direction of BM than in the opposite direction, reflecting the notion that BM cues can trigger cross-modal social attention. This effect was not due to the viewpoint effect of the global configuration and could be extended to local BM cues without any global configuration. Critically, such cross-modal social attention was sensitive to the orientation of BM cues and completely disappeared when critical biological characteristics were removed. Our findings, taken together, support the existence of a special multimodal attention mechanism tuned to life motion signals and shed new light on the unique and cross-modal nature of social attention.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yiwen Yu
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.,Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.,Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing, China.,
| | - Haoyue Ji
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.,Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.,Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing, China.,
| | - Li Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.,Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.,Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing, China.,
| | - Yi Jiang
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.,Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.,Chinese Institute for Brain Research, Beijing, China.,Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center, Hefei, China.,
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8
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Wang L, Wang Y, Xu Q, Liu D, Ji H, Yu Y, Hu Z, Yuan P, Jiang Y. Heritability of reflexive social attention triggered by eye gaze and walking direction: common and unique genetic underpinnings. Psychol Med 2020; 50:475-483. [PMID: 30829191 DOI: 10.1017/s003329171900031x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/05/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Social attention ability is crucial for human adaptive social behaviors and interpersonal communications, and the malfunction of which has been implicated in autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a highly genetic neurodevelopmental disorder marked by striking social deficits. METHODS Using a classical twin design, the current study investigated the genetic contribution to individual variation in social and non-social attention abilities, and further probed their potential genetic linkage. Moreover, individual autistic traits were further measured in an independent group of non-twin participants to examine the hypothetical link between the core social attention ability and ASD. RESULTS We found reliable genetic influences on the social attentional effects induced by two distinct cues (eye gaze and walking direction), with 91% of their covariance accounted for by common genetic effects. However, no evidence of heritability or shared genetic effects was observed for the attentional effect directed by a non-social cue (i.e. arrow direction) and its correlation with the social attention ability. Remarkably, one's autistic traits could well predict his/her heritable core social attention ability extracted from the conventional social attentional effect. CONCLUSIONS These findings together suggest that human social attention ability is supported by unique genetic mechanisms that can be shared across different social, but not non-social, processing. Moreover, they also encourage the identification of 'social attention genes' and highlight the critical role of the core human social attention ability in seeking the endophenotypes of social cognitive disorders including ASD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Li Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 16 Lincui Road, Beijing100101, P. R. China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing100049, P. R. China
| | - Ying Wang
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 16 Lincui Road, Beijing100101, P. R. China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing100049, P. R. China
| | - Qian Xu
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 16 Lincui Road, Beijing100101, P. R. China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing100049, P. R. China
| | - Dong Liu
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 16 Lincui Road, Beijing100101, P. R. China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing100049, P. R. China
| | - Haoyue Ji
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 16 Lincui Road, Beijing100101, P. R. China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing100049, P. R. China
| | - Yiwen Yu
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 16 Lincui Road, Beijing100101, P. R. China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing100049, P. R. China
| | - Zhaoqi Hu
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 16 Lincui Road, Beijing100101, P. R. China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing100049, P. R. China
| | - Peijun Yuan
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 16 Lincui Road, Beijing100101, P. R. China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing100049, P. R. China
| | - Yi Jiang
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 16 Lincui Road, Beijing100101, P. R. China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, 19A Yuquan Road, Beijing100049, P. R. China
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9
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Lunghi M, Di Giorgio E, Benavides-Varela S, Simion F. Covert orienting of attention in 3-month-old infants: The case of biological motion. Infant Behav Dev 2020; 58:101422. [DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2020.101422] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/30/2019] [Revised: 01/23/2020] [Accepted: 01/23/2020] [Indexed: 10/25/2022]
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10
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Lunghi M, Piccardi ES, Richards JE, Simion F. The neural correlates of orienting to walking direction in 6-month-old infants: An ERP study. Dev Sci 2019; 22:e12811. [PMID: 30740853 PMCID: PMC6689458 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12811] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/29/2017] [Revised: 02/01/2019] [Accepted: 02/02/2019] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
The ability to detect social signals represents a first step to enter our social world. Behavioral evidence has demonstrated that 6-month-old infants are able to orient their attention toward the position indicated by walking direction, showing faster orienting responses toward stimuli cued by the direction of motion than toward uncued stimuli. The present study investigated the neural mechanisms underpinning this attentional priming effect by using a spatial cueing paradigm and recording EEG (Geodesic System 128 channels) from 6-month-old infants. Infants were presented with a central point-light walker followed by a single peripheral target. The target appeared randomly at a position either congruent or incongruent with the walking direction of the cue. We examined infants' target-locked event-related potential (ERP) responses and we used cortical source analysis to explore which brain regions gave rise to the ERP responses. The P1 component and saccade latencies toward the peripheral target were modulated by the congruency between the walking direction of the cue and the position of the target. Infants' saccade latencies were faster in response to targets appearing at congruent spatial locations. The P1 component was larger in response to congruent than to incongruent targets and a similar congruency effect was found with cortical source analysis in the parahippocampal gyrus and the anterior fusiform gyrus. Overall, these findings suggest that a type of biological motion like the one of a vertebrate walking on the legs can trigger covert orienting of attention in 6-month-old infants, enabling enhancement of neural activity related to visual processing of potentially relevant information as well as a facilitation of oculomotor responses to stimuli appearing at the attended location.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marco Lunghi
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padova, Italy
| | - Elena Serena Piccardi
- Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck University of London, London (UK)
| | - John E. Richards
- Department of Psychology, and Institute for Mind and Brain, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC (USA)
| | - Francesca Simion
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padova, Italy
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11
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Biological motion and animacy belief induce similar effects on involuntary shifts of attention. Atten Percept Psychophys 2019; 82:1099-1111. [PMID: 31414364 DOI: 10.3758/s13414-019-01843-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Biological motion is salient to the human visual and motor systems and may be intrinsic to the perception of animacy. Evidence for the salience of visual stimuli moving with trajectories consistent with biological motion comes from studies showing that such stimuli can trigger shifts of attention in the direction of that motion. The present study was conducted to determine whether or not top-down beliefs about animacy can modify the salience of a nonbiologically moving stimulus to the visuomotor system. A nonpredictive cuing task was used in which a white dot moved from a central location toward a left- or right-sided target placeholder. The target randomly appeared at either location 200, 600, or 1,300 ms after the motion onset. Five groups of participants experienced different stimulus conditions: (1) biological motion, (2) inverted biological motion, (3) nonbiological motion, (4) animacy belief (paired with nonbiological motion), and (5) computer-generated belief (paired with nonbiological motion). Analysis of response times revealed that the motion in the biological motion and animacy belief groups, but not in the inverted and nonbiological motion groups, affected processing of the target information. These findings indicate that biological motion is salient to the visual system and that top-down beliefs regarding the animacy of the stimulus can tune the visual and motor systems to increase the salience of nonbiological motion.
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12
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Stuart S, Hickey A, Vitorio R, Welman K, Foo S, Keen D, Godfrey A. Eye-tracker algorithms to detect saccades during static and dynamic tasks: a structured review. Physiol Meas 2019; 40:02TR01. [DOI: 10.1088/1361-6579/ab02ab] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/05/2023]
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13
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Craighero L, Lunghi M, Leo I, Ghirardi V, Simion F. Newborns’ attention is driven by the translational movement. VISUAL COGNITION 2017. [DOI: 10.1080/13506285.2017.1322651] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Laila Craighero
- Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche e Chirurgico specialistiche, Università di Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy
| | - Marco Lunghi
- Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy
| | - Irene Leo
- Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy
| | - Valentina Ghirardi
- Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche e Chirurgico specialistiche, Università di Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy
| | - Francesca Simion
- Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy
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14
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Backward-walking biological motion orients attention to moving away instead of moving toward. Psychon Bull Rev 2017; 24:447-452. [PMID: 27368634 DOI: 10.3758/s13423-016-1083-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Walking direction is an important attribute of biological motion because it carries key information, such as the specific intention of the walker. Although it is known that spatial attention is guided by walking direction, it remains unclear whether this attentional shift is reflexive (i.e., constantly shifts to the walking direction) or not. A richer interpretation of this effect is that attention is guided to seek the information that is necessary to understand the motion. To investigate this issue, we examined how backward-walking biological motion orients attention because the intention of walking backward is usually to avoid something that walking forward would encounter. The results showed that attention was oriented to the walking-away direction of biological motion instead of the walking-toward direction (Experiment 1), and this effect was not due to the gaze direction of biological motion (Experiment 2). Our findings suggest that the attentional shift triggered by walking direction is not reflexive, thus providing support for the rich interpretation of these attentional effects.
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Li K, Liu YJ, Qu F, Fu X. Neural activity associated with attention orienting triggered by implied action cues. Brain Res 2016; 1642:353-363. [PMID: 27067186 DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2016.04.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/15/2015] [Revised: 03/31/2016] [Accepted: 04/07/2016] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Spatial attention can be directed by the actions of others. We used ERPs method to investigate the neural underpins associated with attention orienting which is induced by implied body action. Participants performed a standard non-predictive cuing task, in which a directional implied action (throwing and running) or non-action (standing) cue was randomly presented and then followed by a target to the left or right of the central cue, despite cue direction. The cue-triggered ERPs results demonstrated that implied action cues, rather than the non-action cue, could shift the observers' spatial attention as demonstrated by the robust anterior directing attention negativity (ADAN) effects in throwing and running cues. Further, earlier N1 (100-170ms) and P2 (170-260ms) waveform differences occurred between implied action and non-action cues over posterior electrodes. The P2 component might reflect implied motion signal perception of implied action cues, and this implied motion perception might play an important role in facilitating the attentional shifts induced by implied action cues. Target-triggered ERPs data (mainly P3a component) indicated that implied action cues (throwing and running) speeded and enhanced the responses to valid targets compared to invalid targets. Furthermore, P3a might imply that implied action orienting may share similar mechanisms of action with voluntary attention, especially at the novel stimuli processing decision-level. These results further support previous behavioral findings that implied body actions direct spatial attention and extend our understanding about the nature of the attentional shifts that are elicited by implied action cues.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kaiyun Li
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Yong-Jin Liu
- Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology, Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Fangbing Qu
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
| | - Xiaolan Fu
- State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
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Natale E, Addabbo M, Marchis IC, Bolognini N, Macchi Cassia V, Turati C. Action priming with biomechanically possible and impossible grasps: ERP evidence from 6-month-old infants. Soc Neurosci 2016; 12:560-569. [PMID: 27266367 DOI: 10.1080/17470919.2016.1197853] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
Coding the direction of others' gestures is a fundamental human ability, since it allows the observer to attend and react to sources of potential interest in the environment. Shifts of attention triggered by action observation have been reported to occur early in infancy. Yet, the neurophysiological underpinnings of such action priming and the properties of gestures that might be crucial for it remain unknown. Here, we addressed these issues by recording electroencephalographic activity (EEG) from 6-month-old infants cued with spatially non-predictive hand grasping toward or away from the position of a target object, i.e., valid and invalid trials, respectively. Half of the infants were cued with a gesture executable by a human hand (possible gesture) and the other half with a gesture impossible to be executed by a human hand. Results show that the amplitude enhancement of the posterior N290 component in response to targets in valid trials, as compared to invalid trials, was present only for infants seeing possible gestures, while it was absent for infants seeing impossible gestures. These findings suggest that infants detect the biomechanical properties of human movements when processing hand gestures, relying on this information to orient their visual attention toward the target object.
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Affiliation(s)
- E Natale
- a Department of Psychology and NeuroMI, Milan Center for Neuroscience , University of Milano-Bicocca , Milan , Italy
| | - M Addabbo
- a Department of Psychology and NeuroMI, Milan Center for Neuroscience , University of Milano-Bicocca , Milan , Italy
| | - I C Marchis
- a Department of Psychology and NeuroMI, Milan Center for Neuroscience , University of Milano-Bicocca , Milan , Italy
| | - N Bolognini
- a Department of Psychology and NeuroMI, Milan Center for Neuroscience , University of Milano-Bicocca , Milan , Italy.,b Laboratory of Neuropsychology , IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano , Milan , Italy
| | - V Macchi Cassia
- a Department of Psychology and NeuroMI, Milan Center for Neuroscience , University of Milano-Bicocca , Milan , Italy
| | - C Turati
- a Department of Psychology and NeuroMI, Milan Center for Neuroscience , University of Milano-Bicocca , Milan , Italy
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Jung E, Takahashi K, Watanabe K, de la Rosa S, Butz MV, Bülthoff HH, Meilinger T. The Influence of Human Body Orientation on Distance Judgments. Front Psychol 2016; 7:217. [PMID: 27014108 PMCID: PMC4784476 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00217] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/28/2015] [Accepted: 02/03/2016] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
People maintain larger distances to other peoples' front than to their back. We investigated if humans also judge another person as closer when viewing their front than their back. Participants watched animated virtual characters (avatars) and moved a virtual plane toward their location after the avatar was removed. In Experiment 1, participants judged avatars, which were facing them as closer and made quicker estimates than to avatars looking away. In Experiment 2, avatars were rotated in 30 degree steps around the vertical axis. Observers judged avatars roughly facing them (i.e., looking max. 60 degrees away) as closer than avatars roughly looking away. No particular effect was observed for avatars directly facing and also gazing at the observer. We conclude that body orientation was sufficient to generate the asymmetry. Sensitivity of the orientation effect to gaze and to interpersonal distance would have suggested involvement of social processing, but this was not observed. We discuss social and lower-level processing as potential reasons for the effect.
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Affiliation(s)
- Edgard Jung
- Max Planck Institute for Biological CyberneticsTübingen, Germany; University of InnsbruckInnsbruck, Austria
| | - Kohske Takahashi
- Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo Tokyo, Japan
| | - Katsumi Watanabe
- Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of TokyoTokyo, Japan; Waseda UniversityTokyo, Japan
| | | | | | - Heinrich H Bülthoff
- Max Planck Institute for Biological CyberneticsTübingen, Germany; Department of Brain and Cognitive Engineering, Korea UniversitySeoul, South Korea
| | - Tobias Meilinger
- Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics Tübingen, Germany
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