Social attention

Question 1

Eye trackers

Answer 1

Eye trackers can be used to see what captures our attention and how it does

Looks at pupil dilation

Gives us insight into underlying cognitive processes

Question 2

Social attention

Answer 2

Attending to social information in our environment

We are predisposed to look to social info in our environment

Detection of biological motion is an intrinsic capacity of the visual system which is part of the mechanism that predisposes animals to attend to other animals (Simion, Regolin & Bulf, 2008)

Question 3

The importance of social cues

Answer 3

Social cues aid in learning key social skills

Interpreting a social partner’s behaviour & understanding social scenarios assist integration into a social group (Mattson, 2014)

Question 4

Kuhl, Tsao & Liu (2003)

Answer 4

32 American infants
Learning Chinese words either with live exposure or tv exposure
Infants who received the Chinese sessions showed significant effect of learning in the live condition only
Children weren’t able to learn Chinese words with tv exposure

Question 5

Eyes and gaze in infants

Answer 5

Within their fist week babies direct their attention to the eyes (Maurer, 1985)

Can follow gaze by 3 months (Scaife & Brunner, 1975)

By 12 months, they can orient their attention to the location of a gaze (Tomasello, 2009)

Farroni et al (2002)
17 new-borns (24hr - 120hr)
Showed images of direct or averted gaze
Found they spent longer looking at the direct gaze image and more likely to move back to the eyes

Question 6

Gaze cueing

Answer 6

When we see someone move their gaze we move our own so that we are both looking at the same location

Investigated using cueing paradigms

Question 7

Cueing paradigms (Posner, 1980)

Answer 7

Adapted to investigate gaze cueing

Posner-type cueing paradigms

Show that ps are:
- Sig faster to detect target when it is in the same location shown by the gaze cue
- Slower to detect a target when its in a different location

Known as the GAZE CUEING EFFECT

Question 8

Why does the gaze cueing effect happen and why is it important?

Answer 8

When we see the cue we move our eyes in the same direction

We are faster to find the targets if they are in the same place as the cue

Joint attention:
Communicates attention
Alerts us to important aspects of the environment
Pre-cursor to development of ToM
Mundy & Newell (2007)

Question 9

Real world implications of social attention and gaze cueing

Answer 9

Direct our attention to important info in environment

Helps us plan our own actions

Gives us an insight into other peoples intentions

Reciprocal eye contact and attention allows us to fit into society

Question 10

Methods for assessing social attention

Answer 10

• Eye-tracking
• EEG
• fMRI

Question 11

EEG

Answer 11

Electroencephalogram

Measures electrical signals generated by the brain through electrodes on the scalp

Question 12

fMRI

Answer 12

Nummenmaa & Calder (2009)

Many brain regions implicated in social attention:
- Automatically follow gaze? - Parts of the attention network (goal-directed and exogenous attention)
- Areas responsible for coding gaze direction, eye contact, etc (Amygdala/hippocampus)
- Areas involved with facial identity recognition (fusiform gyrus)