Social Saliency of the Cue Slows Attention Shifts
Eye gaze is a powerful cue that indicates where another person’s attention is directed in the environment. Seeing another person’s eye gaze shift spontaneously and reflexively elicits a shift of one’s own attention to the same region in space. Here, we investigated whether reallocation of attention...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2017-05-01
|
| Series: | Frontiers in Psychology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00738/full |
| _version_ | 1818876716626477056 |
|---|---|
| author | Vassiki Chauhan Matteo Visconti di Oleggio Castello Alireza Soltani Maria Ida Gobbini Maria Ida Gobbini |
| author_facet | Vassiki Chauhan Matteo Visconti di Oleggio Castello Alireza Soltani Maria Ida Gobbini Maria Ida Gobbini |
| author_sort | Vassiki Chauhan |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Eye gaze is a powerful cue that indicates where another person’s attention is directed in the environment. Seeing another person’s eye gaze shift spontaneously and reflexively elicits a shift of one’s own attention to the same region in space. Here, we investigated whether reallocation of attention in the direction of eye gaze is modulated by personal familiarity with faces. On the one hand, the eye gaze of a close friend should be more effective in redirecting our attention as compared to the eye gaze of a stranger. On the other hand, the social relevance of a familiar face might itself hold attention and, thereby, slow lateral shifts of attention. To distinguish between these possibilities, we measured the efficacy of the eye gaze of personally familiar and unfamiliar faces as directional attention cues using adapted versions of the Posner paradigm with saccadic and manual responses. We found that attention shifts were slower when elicited by a perceived change in the eye gaze of a familiar individual as compared to attention shifts elicited by unfamiliar faces at short latencies (100 ms). We also measured simple detection of change in direction of gaze in personally familiar and unfamiliar faces to test whether slower attention shifts were due to slower detection. Participants detected changes in eye gaze faster for familiar faces than for unfamiliar faces. Our results suggest that personally familiar faces briefly hold attention due to their social relevance, thereby slowing shifts of attention, even though the direction of eye movements are detected faster in familiar faces. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-19T13:46:49Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-e5ac775bbf51430fa7589cd4f63e8287 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1664-1078 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-19T13:46:49Z |
| publishDate | 2017-05-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Psychology |
| spelling | doaj.art-e5ac775bbf51430fa7589cd4f63e82872022-12-21T20:18:51ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782017-05-01810.3389/fpsyg.2017.00738242651Social Saliency of the Cue Slows Attention ShiftsVassiki Chauhan0Matteo Visconti di Oleggio Castello1Alireza Soltani2Maria Ida Gobbini3Maria Ida Gobbini4Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, HanoverNH, USADepartment of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, HanoverNH, USADepartment of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, HanoverNH, USADepartment of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, HanoverNH, USADipartimento di Medicina Specialistica, Diagnostica e Sperimentale, Medical School, University of BolognaBologna, ItalyEye gaze is a powerful cue that indicates where another person’s attention is directed in the environment. Seeing another person’s eye gaze shift spontaneously and reflexively elicits a shift of one’s own attention to the same region in space. Here, we investigated whether reallocation of attention in the direction of eye gaze is modulated by personal familiarity with faces. On the one hand, the eye gaze of a close friend should be more effective in redirecting our attention as compared to the eye gaze of a stranger. On the other hand, the social relevance of a familiar face might itself hold attention and, thereby, slow lateral shifts of attention. To distinguish between these possibilities, we measured the efficacy of the eye gaze of personally familiar and unfamiliar faces as directional attention cues using adapted versions of the Posner paradigm with saccadic and manual responses. We found that attention shifts were slower when elicited by a perceived change in the eye gaze of a familiar individual as compared to attention shifts elicited by unfamiliar faces at short latencies (100 ms). We also measured simple detection of change in direction of gaze in personally familiar and unfamiliar faces to test whether slower attention shifts were due to slower detection. Participants detected changes in eye gaze faster for familiar faces than for unfamiliar faces. Our results suggest that personally familiar faces briefly hold attention due to their social relevance, thereby slowing shifts of attention, even though the direction of eye movements are detected faster in familiar faces.http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00738/fullpersonal familiaritycue saliencesocial cuesgaze cueingeye gazeface processing |
| spellingShingle | Vassiki Chauhan Matteo Visconti di Oleggio Castello Alireza Soltani Maria Ida Gobbini Maria Ida Gobbini Social Saliency of the Cue Slows Attention Shifts Frontiers in Psychology personal familiarity cue salience social cues gaze cueing eye gaze face processing |
| title | Social Saliency of the Cue Slows Attention Shifts |
| title_full | Social Saliency of the Cue Slows Attention Shifts |
| title_fullStr | Social Saliency of the Cue Slows Attention Shifts |
| title_full_unstemmed | Social Saliency of the Cue Slows Attention Shifts |
| title_short | Social Saliency of the Cue Slows Attention Shifts |
| title_sort | social saliency of the cue slows attention shifts |
| topic | personal familiarity cue salience social cues gaze cueing eye gaze face processing |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00738/full |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT vassikichauhan socialsaliencyofthecueslowsattentionshifts AT matteoviscontidioleggiocastello socialsaliencyofthecueslowsattentionshifts AT alirezasoltani socialsaliencyofthecueslowsattentionshifts AT mariaidagobbini socialsaliencyofthecueslowsattentionshifts AT mariaidagobbini socialsaliencyofthecueslowsattentionshifts |