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Human visual attention is readily captured by the social information in scenes. Multiple studies have shown that social areas of interest (AOIs) such as faces and bodies attract more attention than non-social AOIs (e.g. objects or background). However, whether this attentional bias is moderated by the presence (or absence) of a social interaction remains unclear. Here, the gaze of 70 young adults was tracked during the free viewing of 60 naturalistic scenes. All photographs depicted two people, who were either interacting or not. Analyses of dwell time revealed that more attention was spent on human than background AOIs in the interactive pictures. In non-interactive pictures, however, dwell time did not differ between AOI type. In the time-to-first-fixation analysis, humans always captured attention before other elements of the scene, although this difference was slightly larger in the interactive than non-interactive scenes. These findings confirm the existence of a bias towards social information in attentional capture, and suggest that the presence of social interaction may be important in inducing a similar social bias in attentional engagemente. Together with previous research using less naturalistic stimuli, these findings suggest that social interactions carry additional social value that guides one's perceptual system.

Human visual attention is readily captured by the social information in scenes. Multiple studies have shown that social areas of interest (AOIs) such as faces and bodies attract more attention than non-social AOIs (e.g., objects or background). However, whether this attentional bias is moderated by the presence (or absence) of a social interaction remains unclear. Here, the gaze of 70 young adults was tracked during the free viewing of 60 naturalistic scenes. All photographs depicted two people, who were either interacting or not. Analyses of dwell time revealed that more attention was spent on human than background AOIs in the interactive pictures. In non-interactive pictures, however, dwell time did not differ between AOI type. In the time-to-first-fixation analysis, humans always captured attention before other elements of the scene, although this difference was slightly larger in interactive than non-interactive scenes. These findings confirm the existence of a bias towards social information in attentional capture and suggest our attention values social interactions beyond the presence of two people.

Highlights• Children show less interaction selectivity in the pSTS than adults • Adults show bilateral pSTS selectivity, while children are more right-lateralized • Exploratory findings suggest interaction selectivity in pSTS is more focally tuned in adults Keywords Social interaction; fMRI; development; pSTS; category selectivityAbstract Recent evidence demonstrates that a region of the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) is selective to visually observed social interactions in adults. In contrast,we know comparatively little about neural responses to social interactions in children.Here, we used fMRI to ask whether the pSTS would be 'tuned' to social interactions in children at all, and if so, how selectivity might differ from adults. This was investigated not only in the pSTS, but also in socially-tuned regions in neighbouring temporal cortex:extrastriate body area (EBA), face-selective STS (STS-F), fusiform face area (FFA), and temporo-parietal junction (TPJ-M).Both children and adults showed selectivity to social interaction within right pSTS, while only adults showed selectivity on the left. Adults also showed both more focal and greater selectivity than children (6-12 years) bilaterally. Exploratory sub-group analyses showed that younger children (6-8 years), but not older children (9)(10)(11)(12), are less selective than adults on the right, while there was a developmental trend (adults > older > younger) in left pSTS. These results suggest that, over development, the neural response to social interactions is characterized by increasingly more selective, more focal and more bilateral pSTS responses, a process that likely continues into adolescence.

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