Social attention

Question 1

what is social attention?

Answer 1

attending to social information in our environment, related to gaze cueing

Question 2

eye trackers

Answer 2

• desktop or mobile
• software records saccades, microsaccades, fixations, pupil dilation
• provides info on what captures attention, what we deem as important, an insight into underlying cog processes

Question 3

What catches our attention the most in the social information of a scene?

Answer 3

faces, body parts

Question 4

importance of social cues

Answer 4

• interacting with people is crucial to development
• social cues aid in learning key social skills
• evolutionary perspective: interpreting partner’s behaviour + understanding scenarios`

Question 5

what happens when infants are exposed to chinese or english words either live or audio, and then tested in a few months on their chinese?

Answer 5

the infants exposed to chinese words live performed significantly better, showing learning process is enhanced by social interaction

Question 6

what age do babies direct attention to the eyes?

Answer 6

within the first week of being born

Question 7

at what age can babies follow gaze?

Answer 7

3 months

Question 8

at what age can babies orient their attention to the location of the gaze?

Answer 8

12 months

Question 9

what did the study find using 17 newborns and 3 pictures: a human, humanoid and a monster?

Answer 9

they fixated more on the face/eyes of the human model and less so on the humanoid. fixations random on monster. eyes capture attention

Question 10

why are eyes important?

Answer 10

• human eyes have smaller dark areas so clearer eye movements seen, involved in communication
• gives insight to what our partners are paying attention to and helps us understand thought processes
• can predict what people will do next by what they’re looking at

Question 11

what happens when the polarity of eyes is reversed?

Answer 11

it is more difficult to see what direction eyes were gazing in

Question 12

EEG

Answer 12

• measures electrical signals generated by the brain through electrodes placed on scalp
• ERP is electrophysiological response to stimulus
• specific ERPs associated with certain stimuli e.g. N170

Question 13

What does N170 process?

Answer 13

faces

greater and delayed to eyes suggesting different underlying processing

Question 14

insights from fMRI

Answer 14

• there isn’t just one brain region implicated in social attention
• parts of the attention network, including areas implicated in goal-directed ad exogenous attention

Question 15

which areas of the brain are responsible for eye contact and emotional responses to gaze?

Answer 15

amygdala/hippocampus

Question 16

which areas of the brain are involved with facial identify recognition?

Answer 16

fusiform gyrus

Question 17

which areas of the brain are involved in theory of mind processing?

Answer 17

medial prefrontal cortex, pSTS, TPJ

Question 18

which areas of the brain are responsible for coding gaze direction?

Answer 18

temporal lobe

Question 19

what did fMRI show about direct vs averted gaze?

Answer 19

• there was greater activation in fusiform gyrus for direct gaze
• eye tracking data results show greater attention to eyes + mouth with direct gaze
• direct gaze prepares for face-to-face communication

Question 20

how did a live vs video interview influence gaze?

Answer 20

• averted gaze in live condition when beginning to answer question to reduce cognitive resources
• direct gaze indicates we are listening to social partners
• social norms - look when someone is talking to you
• more likely to direct gaze in live condition

Question 21

what is gaze cueing?

Answer 21

• develops in infancy
• when we see someone move their gaze, we move our own to look at same location
• investigated using cueing paradigms

Question 22

cueing paradigms

Answer 22

• ps are faster to detect target when in same location shown by gaze cue (valid trials)
• slower to detect target when it is in different location to that indicated by the gaze cue that is presented before the target (invalid trails)
• even when ps know the gaze, won’t predict where target will appear –> gaze cueing effect

Question 23

real world implications of social attention and gaze cueing

Answer 23

• we direct our attention to important info in environment
• helps us plan our actions
• gives insight into others intentions
• reciprocal eye contact and attention to social info allows us to fit in as a member of a social group

Question 24

what can affect social interaction?

Answer 24

• how we perceive others
• social context
• neurodevelopmental disorders e.g. autism
• neurological disorders e.g. prosopagnosia - inability to recognise faces

Question 25

what is the effect of showing CVs and photos of people high or low status?

Answer 25

• larger gaze cueing effect for high status faces
• more likely to follow gaze of people we perceive as high social status
• guided by top-down cog processes as well as bottomup

Question 26

how does social context affect social attention?

Answer 26

• we are less likely to look at someone walking close past you in real life compared to video
• someone far away fixated more in real life compared to video
• social norms mean you are less likely to stare at someone walking past in real life

Question 27

how does autism affect social attention?

Answer 27

• pay less attention to eyes and more to mouths
• reduced attention to eyes, mouth and face of others
• look less at faces when people look directly at them
• they don’t show spontaneous gaze cueing

Question 28

how does prosopagnosia affect social attention?

Answer 28

lack of gaze cueing effect at short durations with full face stimuli may be due to inability to process whole face at once –> delay attending to eyes