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Dalmaso M, Galfano G, Castelli L. Are eyes special? Gaze, but not pointing gestures, elicits a reversed congruency effect in a spatial Stroop task. Atten Percept Psychophys 2023; 85:2547-2552. [PMID: 37587354 PMCID: PMC10600034 DOI: 10.3758/s13414-023-02774-6] [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: 08/01/2023] [Indexed: 08/18/2023]
Abstract
Gaze stimuli can shape attention in a peculiar way as compared to non-social stimuli. For instance, in a spatial Stroop task, gaze stimuli elicit a reversed congruency effect (i.e., faster responses on incongruent than on congruent trials) as compared to arrows, for which a standard congruency effect emerges. Here, we tested whether the reversed congruency effect observed for gaze can emerge for other social signals such as pointing gestures. Participants discriminated the direction (left or right) indicated by gaze and pointing finger stimuli that appeared leftwards or rightwards with respect to a central fixation spot. Arrows were also employed as control non-social stimuli. A reversed congruency effect emerged for the gaze, whereas a standard congruency effect emerged for both the pointing finger and the arrows. This suggests that the reversed congruency effect is specific to gaze stimuli and does not embrace all social signals conveying spatial information.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mario Dalmaso
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
| | - Giovanni Galfano
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
| | - Luigi Castelli
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
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2
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López B, Gregory NJ, Freeth M. Social attention patterns of autistic and non-autistic adults when viewing real versus reel people. AUTISM : THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND PRACTICE 2023; 27:2372-2383. [PMID: 36995032 PMCID: PMC10576900 DOI: 10.1177/13623613231162156] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/31/2023]
Abstract
LAY ABSTRACT Early research shows that autistic adults do not attend to faces as much as non-autistic adults. However, some recent studies where autistic people are placed in scenarios with real people reveal that they attend to faces as much as non-autistic people. This study compares attention to faces in two situations. In one, autistic and non-autistic adults watched a pre-recorded video. In the other, they watched what they thought were two people in a room in the same building, via a life webcam, when in fact exactly the same video in two situations. We report the results of 32 autistic adults and 33 non-autistic adults. The results showed that autistic adults do not differ in any way from non-autistic adults when they watched what they believed was people interacting in real time. However, when they thought they were watching a video, non-autistic participants showed higher levels of attention to faces than non-autistic participants. We conclude that attention to social stimuli is the result of a combination of two processes. One innate, which seems to be different in autism, and one that is influenced by social norms, which works in the same way in autistic adults without learning disabilities. The results suggest that social attention is not as different in autism as first thought. Specifically, the study contributes to dispel long-standing deficit models regarding social attention in autism as it points to subtle differences in the use of social norms rather than impairments.
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Zhang T, Gao Y, Hu S, Xiong L, Cheng Z, Tian Y, Zhao J, Wang Y. Focused attention: its key role in gaze and arrow cues for determining where attention is directed. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2023; 87:1966-1980. [PMID: 36550246 DOI: 10.1007/s00426-022-01781-w] [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: 08/31/2022] [Accepted: 12/11/2022] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
Abstract
Others' gaze direction and traffic arrow signal lights play significant roles in guiding observers' attention in daily life. Previous studies have shown that gaze and arrow cues can direct attention to the cued location. However, it is ambiguous where gaze and arrow cues guide attention: the cued location or a broader cued region. Therefore, the present study adopted a primary cue-target task and manipulated possible target locations to explore this issue. The results revealed that due to the different physical characteristics of non-predictive gaze and arrow cues, physically unfocused-pointing gaze cues guided attention to a broader cued region, whereas focused-pointing arrow cues guided attention to the exact cued location. Furthermore, gaze cues could also direct attention to the exact cued location when observers' attention was focused in a top-down manner (with highly predictive probability). These findings suggest that where gaze and arrow cues direct attention depends on whether observers' attention is focused by the cues, either in a bottom-up or top-down manner. Accordingly, a preliminary framework called the "Focused-Diffused Attentional Orienting Model" is proposed to explain how gaze and arrow cues direct humans' attention. The present study enhances our understanding of human attentional orienting systems from a behavioral perspective.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tingkang Zhang
- School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, No. 199, South Chang'an Road, Xi'an, 710062, China
- Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Behavior and Cognitive Neuroscience, Xi'an, China
| | - Yunfei Gao
- School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, No. 199, South Chang'an Road, Xi'an, 710062, China
- Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Behavior and Cognitive Neuroscience, Xi'an, China
| | - Saisai Hu
- School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, No. 199, South Chang'an Road, Xi'an, 710062, China
- Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Behavior and Cognitive Neuroscience, Xi'an, China
| | - Lujian Xiong
- School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, No. 199, South Chang'an Road, Xi'an, 710062, China
- Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Behavior and Cognitive Neuroscience, Xi'an, China
| | - Zhijun Cheng
- School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, No. 199, South Chang'an Road, Xi'an, 710062, China
- Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Behavior and Cognitive Neuroscience, Xi'an, China
| | - Yanying Tian
- School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, No. 199, South Chang'an Road, Xi'an, 710062, China
- Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Behavior and Cognitive Neuroscience, Xi'an, China
| | - Jingjing Zhao
- School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, No. 199, South Chang'an Road, Xi'an, 710062, China.
- Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Behavior and Cognitive Neuroscience, Xi'an, China.
| | - Yonghui Wang
- School of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, No. 199, South Chang'an Road, Xi'an, 710062, China.
- Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Behavior and Cognitive Neuroscience, Xi'an, China.
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Dalmaso M, Fedrigo G, Vicovaro M. Gazing left, gazing right: exploring a spatial bias in social attention. PeerJ 2023; 11:e15694. [PMID: 37456887 PMCID: PMC10349552 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.15694] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/23/2022] [Accepted: 06/14/2023] [Indexed: 07/18/2023] Open
Abstract
Faces oriented rightwards are sometimes perceived as more dominant than faces oriented leftwards. In this study, we explored whether faces oriented rightwards can also elicit increased attentional orienting. Participants completed a discrimination task in which they were asked to discriminate, by means of a keypress, a peripheral target. At the same time, a task-irrelevant face oriented leftwards or rightwards appeared at the centre of the screen. The results showed that, while for faces oriented rightwards targets appearing on the right were responded to faster as compared to targets appearing on the left, for faces oriented leftwards no differences emerged between left and right targets. Furthermore, we also found a negative correlation between the magnitude of the orienting response elicited by the faces oriented leftwards and the level of conservatism of the participants. Overall, these findings provide evidence for the existence of a spatial bias reflected in social orienting.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mario Dalmaso
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
| | - Giacomo Fedrigo
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
| | - Michele Vicovaro
- Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Padua, Italy
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5
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Combining social cues in attention: Looking at gaze, head, and pointing cues. Atten Percept Psychophys 2023; 85:1021-1033. [PMID: 36849577 PMCID: PMC10167180 DOI: 10.3758/s13414-023-02669-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 02/01/2023] [Indexed: 03/01/2023]
Abstract
Social cues bias covert spatial attention. In most previous work the impact of different social cues, such as the gaze, head, and pointing cue, has been investigated using separated cues or making one cue explicitly task relevant in response-interference tasks. In the present study we created a novel cartoon figure in which unpredictive gaze and head and pointing cues could be combined to study their impact on spatial attention. In Experiment 1, gaze and pointing cues were either presented alone or together. When both cues were present, they were always directed to the same location. In Experiment 2, gaze and pointing cues were either directed to the same location (aligned) or directed to different locations (conflicted). Experiment 3 was like Experiment 2, except that the pointing cue was tested alongside a head-direction cue. The results of Experiment 1 showed that the effect of the gaze cue was reliably smaller than the pointing cue, and an aligned gaze cue did not have an additive benefit for performance. In Experiments 2 and 3, performance was determined by the pointing cue, regardless of where they eyes were looking, or the head was directed. The present results demonstrated a strong dominance of the pointing cue over the other cues. The child-friendly stimuli present a versatile way to study the impact of the combination of social cues, which may further benefit developmental research in social attention, and research in populations whose members might have atypical social attention.
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The effect of directional social cues on saccadic eye movements in Parkinson's disease. Exp Brain Res 2021; 239:2063-2075. [PMID: 33928399 PMCID: PMC8282557 DOI: 10.1007/s00221-021-06034-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/25/2020] [Accepted: 01/04/2021] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
Abstract
There is growing interest in how social processes and behaviour might be affected in Parkinson’s disease. A task which has been widely used to assess how people orient attention in response to social cues is the spatial cueing task. Socially relevant directional cues, such as a picture of someone gazing or pointing to the left or the right have been shown to cause orienting of visual attention in the cued direction. The basal ganglia may play a role in responding to such directional cues, but no studies to date have examined whether similar social cueing effects are seen in people with Parkinson’s disease. In this study, patients and healthy controls completed a prosaccade (Experiment 1) and an antisaccade task (Experiment 2) in which the target was preceded by arrow, eye gaze or pointing finger cues. Patients showed increased errors and response times for antisaccades but not prosaccades. Healthy participants made most anticipatory errors on pointing finger cue trials, but Parkinson's patients were equally affected by arrow, eye gaze and pointing cues. It is concluded that Parkinson's patients have a reduced ability to suppress responding to directional cues, but this effect is not specific to social cues.
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Zeligman L, Zivotofsky AZ. A novel variation of the Stroop task reveals reflexive supremacy of peripheral over gaze stimuli in pro and anti saccades. Conscious Cogn 2020; 85:103020. [PMID: 32932098 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2020.103020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/07/2020] [Revised: 06/28/2020] [Accepted: 09/02/2020] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Abstract
A long-standing controversy in social attention debates whether gaze-of-another induces reflexive shifts of one's own attention. In attempting to resolve this controversy, we utilized a novel Stroop task, the PAT Stroop, in which pro- and anti-saccade (PAT) responses are made to competing gaze and peripheral stimuli. The first experiment demonstrated a "Stroop effect" for peripheral stimuli, i.e. peripheral distractors interfered with gaze triggers, but gaze distractors did not interfere with peripheral triggers. These results were replicated in the second experiment, which also negated the possibility that the mere display and practice of the "clean PAT" influenced the results. Thus, the use a new PAT Stroop task demonstrated reflexive supremacy of peripheral stimuli over gaze stimuli. This novel variant of the Stroop task demonstrated similar characteristics to the classic color naming Stroop - i.e. an asymmetrical pattern, and again showed the utility and versatility of stoop-like tasks in probing mental tasks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Liran Zeligman
- Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, and School of Behavioral Sciences, Peres Academic Center, Israel
| | - Ari Z Zivotofsky
- The Leslie and Susan Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Israel.
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8
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Pavani F, Venturini M, Baruffaldi F, Caselli MC, van Zoest W. Environmental Learning of Social Cues: Evidence From Enhanced Gaze Cueing in Deaf Children. Child Dev 2019; 90:1525-1534. [PMID: 31301066 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13284] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
The susceptibility to gaze cueing in deaf children aged 7-14 years old (N = 16) was tested using a nonlinguistic task. Participants performed a peripheral shape-discrimination task, whereas uninformative central gaze cues validly or invalidly cued the location of the target. To assess the role of sign language experience and bilingualism in deaf participants, three groups of age-matched hearing children were recruited: bimodal bilinguals (vocal and sign-language, N = 19), unimodal bilinguals (two vocal languages, N = 17), and monolinguals (N = 14). Although all groups showed a gaze-cueing effect and were faster to respond to validly than invalidly cued targets, this effect was twice as large in deaf participants. This result shows that atypical sensory experience can tune the saliency of a fundamental social cue.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francesco Pavani
- University of Trento.,Centre de Recherche en Neuroscience Lyon (CRNL)
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Gregory NJ, Bolderston H, Antolin JV. Attention to faces and gaze-following in social anxiety: preliminary evidence from a naturalistic eye-tracking investigation. Cogn Emot 2018; 33:931-942. [PMID: 30187816 DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2018.1519497] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
Abstract
Social attentional biases are a core component of social anxiety disorder, but research has not yet determined their direction due to methodological limitations. Here we present preliminary findings from a novel, dynamic eye-tracking paradigm allowing spatial-temporal measurement of attention and gaze-following, a mechanism previously unexplored in social anxiety. 105 participants took part, with those high (N = 27) and low (N = 25) in social anxiety traits (HSA and LSA respectively) entered into the analyses. Participants watched a video of an emotionally-neutral social scene, where two actors periodically shifted their gaze towards the periphery. HSA participants looked more at the actors' faces during the initial 2s than the LSA group but there were no group differences in proportion of first fixations to the face or latency to first fixate the face, although HSA individuals' first fixations to the face were shorter. No further differences in eye movements were found, nor in gaze-following behaviour, although these null effects could potentially result from the relatively small sample. Findings suggest attention is biased towards faces in HSA individuals during initial scene inspection, but that overt gaze-following may be impervious to individual differences in social anxiety. Future research should seek to replicate these effects.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicola J Gregory
- a Department of Psychology, Faculty of Science and Technology , Bournemouth University , Poole , UK
| | - Helen Bolderston
- a Department of Psychology, Faculty of Science and Technology , Bournemouth University , Poole , UK
| | - Jastine V Antolin
- a Department of Psychology, Faculty of Science and Technology , Bournemouth University , Poole , UK
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10
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Face stimulus eliminates antisaccade-cost: gaze following is a different kind of arrow. Exp Brain Res 2018; 236:1041-1052. [DOI: 10.1007/s00221-018-5198-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/18/2017] [Accepted: 02/05/2018] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
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11
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Gregory NJ, Hermens F, Facey R, Hodgson TL. The developmental trajectory of attentional orienting to socio-biological cues. Exp Brain Res 2016; 234:1351-62. [PMID: 27060906 PMCID: PMC4851695 DOI: 10.1007/s00221-016-4627-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/20/2015] [Accepted: 03/12/2016] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
It has been proposed that the orienting of attention in the same direction as another’s point of gaze relies on innate brain mechanisms which are present from birth, but direct evidence relating to the influence of eye gaze cues on attentional orienting in young children is limited. In two experiments, 137 children aged 3–10 years old performed an adapted pro-saccade task with centrally presented uninformative eye gaze, finger pointing and arrow pre-cues which were either congruent or incongruent with the direction of target presentations. When the central cue overlapped with presentation of the peripheral target (Experiment 1), children up to 5 years old had difficulty disengaging fixation from central fixation in order to saccade to the target. This effect was found to be particularly marked for eye gaze cues. When central cues were extinguished simultaneously with peripheral target onset (Experiment 2), this effect was greatly reduced. In both experiments finger pointing cues (image of pointing index finger presented at fixation) exerted a strong influence on saccade reaction time to the peripheral stimulus for the youngest group of children (<5 years). Overall the results suggest that although young children are strongly engaged by centrally presented eye gaze cues, the directional influence of such cues on overt attentional orienting is only present in older children, meaning that the effect is unlikely to be dependent upon an innate brain module. Instead, the results are consistent with the existence of stimulus–response associations which develop with age and environmental experience.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicola Jean Gregory
- Department of Psychology, Faculty of Science and Technology, Bournemouth University, Poole, Dorset, UK
| | - Frouke Hermens
- School of Psychology, University of Lincoln, Brayford Pool, Lincoln, UK
| | - Rebecca Facey
- School of Psychology, College of Life and Environmental Science, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
| | - Timothy L Hodgson
- School of Psychology, University of Lincoln, Brayford Pool, Lincoln, UK.
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Marino BFM, Mirabella G, Actis-Grosso R, Bricolo E, Ricciardelli P. Can we resist another person's gaze? Front Behav Neurosci 2015; 9:258. [PMID: 26550008 PMCID: PMC4623777 DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2015.00258] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/27/2015] [Accepted: 09/08/2015] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Adaptive adjustments of strategies are needed to optimize behavior in a dynamic and uncertain world. A key function in implementing flexible behavior and exerting self-control is represented by the ability to stop the execution of an action when it is no longer appropriate for the environmental requests. Importantly, stimuli in our environment are not equally relevant and some are more valuable than others. One example is the gaze of other people, which is known to convey important social information about their direction of attention and their emotional and mental states. Indeed, gaze direction has a significant impact on the execution of voluntary saccades of an observer since it is capable of inducing in the observer an automatic gaze-following behavior: a phenomenon named social or joint attention. Nevertheless, people can exert volitional inhibitory control on saccadic eye movements during their planning. Little is known about the interaction between gaze direction signals and volitional inhibition of saccades. To fill this gap, we administered a countermanding task to 15 healthy participants in which they were asked to observe the eye region of a face with the eyes shut appearing at central fixation. In one condition, participants were required to suppress a saccade, that was previously instructed by a gaze shift toward one of two peripheral targets, when the eyes were suddenly shut down (social condition, SC). In a second condition, participants were asked to inhibit a saccade, that was previously instructed by a change in color of one of the two same targets, when a change of color of a central picture occurred (non-social condition, N-SC). We found that inhibitory control was more impaired in the SC, suggesting that actions initiated and stopped by social cues conveyed by the eyes are more difficult to withhold. This is probably due to the social value intrinsically linked to these cues and the many uses we make of them.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Giovanni Mirabella
- Department of Physiology and Pharmacology "V. Erspamer", La Sapienza University Rome, Italy ; IRCSS Neuromed Pozzilli, Italy
| | - Rossana Actis-Grosso
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca Milan, Italy ; Milan Center for Neuroscience Milan, Italy
| | - Emanuela Bricolo
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca Milan, Italy ; Milan Center for Neuroscience Milan, Italy
| | - Paola Ricciardelli
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca Milan, Italy ; Milan Center for Neuroscience Milan, Italy
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Cooney SM, O’Shea A, Brady N. Point Me in the Right Direction: Same and Cross Category Visual Aftereffects to Directional Cues. PLoS One 2015; 10:e0141411. [PMID: 26509881 PMCID: PMC4625052 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0141411] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/20/2015] [Accepted: 10/08/2015] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Of the many hand gestures that we use in communication pointing is one of the most common and powerful in its role as a visual referent that directs joint attention. While numerous studies have examined the developmental trajectory of pointing production and comprehension, very little consideration has been given to adult visual perception of hand pointing gestures. Across two studies, we use a visual adaptation paradigm to explore the mechanisms underlying the perception of proto-declarative hand pointing. Twenty eight participants judged whether 3D modeled hands pointed, in depth, at or to the left or right of a target (test angles of 0°, 0.75° and 1.5° left and right) before and after adapting to either hands or arrows which pointed 10° to the right or left of the target. After adaptation, the perception of the pointing direction of the test hands shifted with respect to the adapted direction, revealing separate mechanisms for coding right and leftward pointing directions. While there were subtle yet significant differences in the strength of adaptation to hands and arrows, both cues gave rise to a similar pattern of aftereffects. The considerable cross category adaptation found when arrows were used as adapting stimuli and the asymmetry in aftereffects to left and right hands suggests that the adaptation aftereffects are likely driven by simple orientation cues, inherent in the morphological structure of the hand, and not dependent on the biological status of the hand pointing cue. This finding provides evidence in support of a common neural mechanism that processes these directional social cues, a mechanism that may be blind to the biological status of the stimulus category.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Maeve Cooney
- School of Psychology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin, Ireland
| | - Alanna O’Shea
- School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin, Ireland
| | - Nuala Brady
- School of Psychology, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin, Ireland
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Dalmaso M, Galfano G, Castelli L. The Impact of Same- and Other-Race Gaze Distractors on the Control of Saccadic Eye Movements. Perception 2015; 44:1020-8. [PMID: 26562916 DOI: 10.1177/0301006615594936] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Two experiments were aimed at investigating whether the implementation of voluntary saccades in White participants could be modulated more strongly by gaze distractors embedded in White versus Black faces. Participants were instructed to make a rightward or leftward saccade, depending on a central directional cue. Saccade direction could be either congruent or incongruent with gaze direction of the distractor face. In Experiment 1, White faces produced greater interference on saccadic accuracy than Black faces when the averted-gaze face and cue onset were simultaneous rather than separated by a 900-ms asynchrony. In Experiment 2, two temporal intervals (50 ms vs. 1,000 ms) occurred between the initial presentation of the face with direct-gaze and the averted-gaze face onset, whereas the averted-gaze face and cue onset were synchronous. A greater interference emerged for White versus Black faces irrespective of the temporal interval. Overall, these findings suggest that saccadic generation system is sensitive to features of face stimuli conveying eye gaze.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mario Dalmaso
- Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy
| | - Giovanni Galfano
- Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, Università di Padova, Padova, ItalyCentro di Neuroscienze Cognitive, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy
| | - Luigi Castelli
- Dipartimento di Psicologia dello Sviluppo e della Socializzazione, Università di Padova, Padova, ItalyCentro di Neuroscienze Cognitive, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy
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Gregory NJ, Lόpez B, Graham G, Marshman P, Bate S, Kargas N. Reduced gaze following and attention to heads when viewing a "live" social scene. PLoS One 2015; 10:e0121792. [PMID: 25853239 PMCID: PMC4390321 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0121792] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/08/2014] [Accepted: 02/04/2015] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Social stimuli are known to both attract and direct our attention, but most research on social attention has been conducted in highly controlled laboratory settings lacking in social context. This study examined the role of social context on viewing behaviour of participants whilst they watched a dynamic social scene, under three different conditions. In two social groups, participants believed they were watching a live webcam of other participants. The socially-engaged group believed they would later complete a group task with the people in the video, whilst the non-engaged group believed they would not meet the people in the scene. In a third condition, participants simply free-viewed the same video with the knowledge that it was pre-recorded, with no suggestion of a later interaction. Results demonstrated that the social context in which the stimulus was viewed significantly influenced viewing behaviour. Specifically, participants in the social conditions allocated less visual attention towards the heads of the actors in the scene and followed their gaze less than those in the free-viewing group. These findings suggest that by underestimating the impact of social context in social attention, researchers risk coming to inaccurate conclusions about how we attend to others in the real world.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicola Jean Gregory
- Psychology Research Centre, Faculty of Science and Technology, Bournemouth University, Poole, Dorset, United Kingdom
- Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, Hampshire, United Kingdom
- * E-mail:
| | - Beatriz Lόpez
- Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, Hampshire, United Kingdom
| | - Gemma Graham
- Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, Hampshire, United Kingdom
| | - Paul Marshman
- Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, Hampshire, United Kingdom
| | - Sarah Bate
- Psychology Research Centre, Faculty of Science and Technology, Bournemouth University, Poole, Dorset, United Kingdom
| | - Niko Kargas
- Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, Hampshire, United Kingdom
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de Koning BB, Tabbers HK. Gestures in Instructional Animations: A Helping Hand to Understanding Non-human Movements? APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY 2013. [DOI: 10.1002/acp.2937] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/11/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Björn B. de Koning
- Department of Psychology; Erasmus University Rotterdam; Rotterdam; The Netherlands
| | - Huib K. Tabbers
- Department of Psychology; Erasmus University Rotterdam; Rotterdam; The Netherlands
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17
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