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Published on: May 14, 2014
Taking control of reflexive social attention
Jelena Ristic1, Alan Kingstone
1Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4. jelena.ristic@telus.net
Cognition
|December 25, 2004
Summary
Social attention shifts are influenced by top-down factors, but only when initially perceiving stimuli as faces. Once seen as having eyes, this social attention effect persists regardless of later context.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Social Psychology
- Visual Perception
Background:
- Reflexive social attention, the tendency to shift gaze towards where others look, is often attributed to automatic processing in the inferior temporal (IT) cortex.
- The IT cortex is believed to contain specialized modules for processing social cues like faces and gaze.
- However, the role of top-down cognitive control in modulating these automatic responses remains debated.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether reflexive social orienting is a purely automatic process or if it can be modulated by top-down cognitive influences.
- To determine the conditions under which top-down factors influence the perception of social cues and subsequent attentional shifts.
Main Methods:
- Behavioral experiments using ambiguous visual stimuli that could be interpreted as either EYES or a CAR.
- Manipulating the contextual information provided to participants about the stimulus before and after initial presentation.
- Measuring attentional shifts in response to these stimuli under different top-down priming conditions.
Main Results:
- An automatic shift in attention, similar to that evoked by a face, occurred only when the ambiguous stimulus was initially framed as EYES.
- When the stimulus was first presented as a CAR and then as EYES, attentional shifts were observed only for the EYES condition.
- However, when initially presented as EYES and subsequently as a CAR, attentional shifts persisted for both interpretations, indicating asymmetrical top-down influence.
Conclusions:
- The emergence of reflexive social attention is not purely automatic but is significantly influenced by top-down mechanisms in an asymmetrical manner.
- Top-down processes are effective in initiating the perception of social cues (e.g., eyes), thereby triggering the social attention effect.
- Once a stimulus is perceived as having eyes, this perception and the associated social attention effect are robust and resistant to subsequent contextual changes.
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