Social Threat and Motor Resonance: When a Menacing Outgroup Delays Motor Response

Wearing the face mask affects our social attention over space

Recent studies suggest that covering the face inhibits the recognition of identity and emotional expressions. However, it might also make the eyes more salient, since they are a reliable index to orient our social and spatial attention. This study investigates (1) whether the pervasive interaction with people with face masks fostered by the COVID-19 pandemic modulates the processing of spatial information essential to shift attention according to other's eye-gaze direction (i.e., gaze-cueing effect: GCE), and (2) whether this potential modulation interacts with motor responses (i.e., Simon effect). Participants were presented with face cues orienting their gaze to a congruent or incongruent target letter location (gaze-cueing paradigm) while wearing a surgical mask (Mask), a patch (Control), or nothing (No-Mask). The task required to discriminate the identity of the lateralized target letters by pressing one of two lateralized response keys, in a corresponding or a non-corresponding position with respect to the target. Results showed that GCE was not modulated by the presence of the Mask, but it occurred in the No-Mask condition, confirming previous studies. Crucially, the GCE interacted with Simon effect in the Mask and Control conditions, though in different ways. While in the Mask condition the GCE emerged only when target and response positions corresponded (i.e., Simon-corresponding trials), in the Control condition it emerged only when they did not correspond (i.e., Simon-non-corresponding trials). These results indicate that people with face masks induce us to jointly orient our visual attention in the direction of the seen gaze (GCE) in those conditions resembling (or associated with) a general approaching behavior (Simon-corresponding trials). This is likely promoted by the fact that we tend to perceive wearing the mask as a personal safety measure and, thus, someone wearing the face mask is perceived as a trustworthy person. In contrast, people with a patch on their face can be perceived as more threatening, therefore inducing a GCE in those conditions associated with a general avoidance behavior (Simon-non-corresponding trials).

"Be careful what you do": How social threat influences social attention driven by reach-to-grasp movements

Social attention is the ability to share with social partners the attentional focus on an object and to orient attentional resources after observing others' behaviors. In the present work, we analyzed whether social threat may influence social attention during the observation of social agents' reach-to-grasp movements. In two experimental studies, we adopted a Posner-like paradigm: participants were required to classify neutral stimuli appearing in a congruent or incongruent position with the actor's movement. Membership (ingroup vs. outgroup) and contextual cues (neutral vs. threatening objects) were manipulated. The results showed a robust action-cueing effect: responses to stimuli in a congruent position with the actor's action were faster than responses to incongruent stimuli. Interestingly, we found a stronger effect for the threatening outgroup (i.e., Iraqi) than for the ingroup (i.e., Italian), especially in presence of menacing objects. No effects were found when observing the non-threatening outgroup (i.e., Japanese).

In-group biases and oculomotor responses: beyond simple approach motivation

An in-group bias describes an individual’s bias towards a group that they belong to. Previous studies suggest that in-group bias facilitates approach motor responses, but disrupts avoidance ones. Such motor biases are shown to be more robust when the out-group is threatening. We investigated whether, under controlled visual familiarity and complexity, in-group biases still promote pro-saccade and hinder anti-saccades oculomotor responses. Participants first learned to associate an in-group or out-group label with an arbitrary shape. They were then instructed to listen to the group-relevant auditory cue (name of own and a rival university) followed by one of the shapes. Half of the participants were instructed to look towards the visual target if it matched the preceding group-relevant auditory cue and to look away from it if it did not match. The other half of the participants received reversed instructions. This design allowed us to orthogonally manipulate the effect of in-group bias and cognitive control demand on oculomotor responses. Both pro- and anti-saccades were faster and more accurate following the in-group auditory cue. Independently, pro-saccades were performed better than anti-saccades, and match judgements were faster and more accurate than non-match judgements. Our findings indicate that under higher cognitive control demands individuals’ oculomotor responses improved following the motivationally salient cue (in-group). Our findings have important implications for learning and cognitive control in a social context. As we included rival groups, our results might to some extent reflect the effects of out-group threat. Future studies could extend our findings using non-threatening out-groups instead.