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Social gaze cueing to auditory locations
1School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK. roger.newport@nottingham.ac.uk
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (2006)
|January 10, 2009
Summary
Social gaze directs attention to both visual and auditory targets. This social cueing effect is optimal at 600 ms and is impaired by negative facial expressions, demonstrating its cross-modal nature.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Social Psychology
Background:
- Social cues, particularly gaze, are known to orient spatial attention towards visual targets.
- Previous research has primarily focused on the visual modality of social attention cueing.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether social gaze can also direct attention to auditory targets.
- To determine the temporal dynamics of gaze-based attention for auditory stimuli.
- To examine the influence of emotional facial expressions on gaze-mediated attention.
Main Methods:
- Participants performed auditory and visual target detection and discrimination tasks.
- Social gaze cues (directing attention to specific locations) were presented.
- Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between gaze cue and target varied.
- Negative facial expressions were presented to assess their impact.
Main Results:
- Social gaze successfully directed attention to both auditory and visual targets.
- The attentional benefit for auditory targets persisted for a longer duration (300-1005 ms) compared to discrimination (600 ms).
- Optimal performance was observed at a 600 ms stimulus onset asynchrony.
- Negative faces impaired the orienting of attention by gaze.
Conclusions:
- Social gaze is a cross-modal cue that orients attention to both visual and auditory stimuli.
- There is an optimal temporal window for processing social gaze cues.
- Negative social cues can interfere with the typical attentional orienting effects of gaze.
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