1
|
Saito T, Motoki K, Nouchi R, Kawashima R, Sugiura M. Loneliness Modulates Automatic Attention to Warm and Competent Faces: Preliminary Evidence From an Eye-Tracking Study. Front Psychol 2020; 10:2967. [PMID: 32010024 PMCID: PMC6979038 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02967] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/17/2019] [Accepted: 12/16/2019] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Social connections are essential for human survival. Loneliness is a motivational factor for building and maintaining social connections. Automatic attention occurs with little cognitive effort and plays a key role in detecting biologically salient events, such as human faces. Although previous studies have investigated the effect of loneliness on social behavior, the effect of loneliness on automatic attention to human faces remains largely unknown. The present study investigated the effects of loneliness on automatic visual attention to warmth and competence facial information, which determines facial attraction. This study included 43 participants who rated warmth and competence facial information. Then, they engaged with the target-distractor paradigm in which they saw two house images at the top and bottom and indicated whether the images were identical. During the task, we presented two faces as distractors and measured visual attention toward the faces as automatic attention because participants did not have to attend to the faces. The results showed an interactive effect between subjective loneliness and facial information on automatic attention. Warm targets automatically captured the attention of people feeling relatively lonely, whereas competent targets automatically captured the attention of those who felt less lonely. These results suggest that loneliness adaptively influences automatic processing of social information.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Toshiki Saito
- Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Tokyo, Japan
| | - Kosuke Motoki
- Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Tokyo, Japan
- Department of Food Management, Miyagi University, Sendai, Japan
| | - Rui Nouchi
- Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
- Smart Ageing Research Center, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
| | - Ryuta Kawashima
- Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
- Smart Ageing Research Center, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
| | - Motoaki Sugiura
- Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
- Smart Ageing Research Center, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
- International Research Institute of Disaster Science, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
TSUJIMOTO S. EDITORIAL FOR THE SPECIAL ISSUE. PSYCHOLOGIA 2017. [DOI: 10.2117/psysoc.2017.1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Satoshi TSUJIMOTO
- Department of Intelligence Science and Technology, Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University
- The Nielsen Company Singapore Pte Ltd
| |
Collapse
|