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Updated: Feb 6, 2026

Measuring Attention and Visual Processing Speed by Model-based Analysis of Temporal-order Judgments
Published on: January 23, 2017
Attentional Selection of Social Features Persists Despite Restricted Bottom-Up Information and Affects Temporal
Aleya Flechsenhar1, Lara Rösler2, Matthias Gamer1
1Department of Psychology, Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
Abstract:
Previous studies have shown an attentional bias towards social features during free-viewing of naturalistic scenes. This social attention seems to be reflexive and able to defy top-down demands in form of explicit search tasks. However, the question remains whether social features continue to be prioritized when peripheral information is limited, thereby reducing the influence of bottom-up image information on gaze orienting. Therefore, we established a gaze-contingent viewing paradigm, in which the visual field was constrained and updated in response to the viewer's eye movements. Participants viewed social and non-social images that were randomly allocated to a free and a gaze-contingent viewing condition while their eye movements were tracked. Our results revealed a strong attentional bias towards social features in both conditions. However, gaze-contingent viewing altered temporal and spatial dynamics of viewing behavior. Additionally, recurrent fixations were more frequent and closer together in time for social compared to non-social stimuli in both viewing conditions. Taken together, this study implies a predominant selection of social features when bottom-up influences are diminished and a general influence of social content on visual exploratory behavior, thus highlighting mechanisms of social attention.
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