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Context Modulates Congruency Effects in Selective Attention to Social Cues
Andrea Ravagli1, Francesco Marini1,2,3, Barbara F M Marino1
1Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy.
Frontiers in Psychology
|June 28, 2018
Summary
Cognitive control mechanisms adapt to conflicting social cues, especially when conflict is expected. Performance on gaze-discrimination tasks improves with frequent conflict, unlike head-discrimination tasks, highlighting differences in social cue distraction.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Social Cognition
Background:
- Head and gaze directions are vital social cues for inferring attention.
- Conflicting head and gaze cues present challenges in social interaction.
- Cognitive mechanisms filter conflicting stimuli in non-social attention tasks.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate cognitive control mechanisms for filtering conflicting social cues.
- To examine how conflict probability influences distraction from head and gaze cues.
- To clarify differences in the distracting potential of head versus gaze cues.
Main Methods:
- Gaze and head direction discrimination tasks with varying conflict probabilities.
- Manipulation of distractor presence and congruency (Experiment 1).
- Assessment of performance under different task demands and cognitive loads (Experiments 2 & 3).
Main Results:
- Gaze direction discrimination showed performance decrements with infrequent conflict, indicating proactive filtering.
- Adaptation to frequent conflict improved performance on gaze-discrimination trials.
- Head direction discrimination was less affected by conflict unless cognitive load increased.
Conclusions:
- Proactive cognitive control is modulated by expected conflict in social attention tasks.
- Task type and cognitive load significantly influence the processing of conflicting social cues.
- Head and gaze cues possess distinct distracting potentials in speeded social attention.
Keywords:
conflict adaptationdistraction context manipulation paradigmgaze discriminationhead orientationproactive controlproportion congruency effectsocial attentionsocial cuesMore Related Videos
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