A short-lived face alert during inhibition of return

Abstract

In the present study, we explored the role of faces in oculomotor inhibition of return (IOR) using a tightly controlled spatial cuing paradigm. We measured saccadic response latency to targets following peripheral cues that were either faces or objects of lesser sociobiological salience. A recurring influence from cue content was observed across numerous methodological variations. Faces versus other object cues briefly reduced saccade latencies toward subsequently presented targets, independently of attentional allocation and IOR. The results suggest a short-lived priming effect or social facilitation effect from the mere presence of a face. In the present study, we further showed that saccadic responses were unaffected by face versus nonface objects in double-cue presentations. Our findings indicate that peripheral face cues do not influence attentional orienting processes involved in IOR any differently from other objects in a tightly controlled oculomotor IOR paradigm.Keywords Eye movements and visual attention . Cognitive and attentional control . Inhibition of return . Face perception Attention allows for the selective processing of one source of information over other simultaneously available sources. Stolz (1996) demonstrated that the spatial orienting of exogenous visual attention can be influenced by content at peripheral locations. Using Posner's (1980) spatial cuing paradigm, the semantic relation of peripherally presented cue words to a context word was shown to influence the disengagement of attention. Subsequent research has also shown that emotional valence of cues can influence attentional disengagement (e.g

Eye gaze and head orientation modulate the inhibition of return for faces

“…In fact, the shortest SOA in the current study actually produced the largest IOR magnitude (across head orientations), which is similar to these previously mentioned studies Tassinari et al, 1994;Tassinari & Berlucchi, 1995;Tassinari et al, 1989) that also showed the largest IOR effects at the shortest SOAs (~200 ms). This finding is also similar to the larger IOR magnitude at the 200-ms SOA than the 700 ms SOA found in Weaver et al (2012). Perhaps the larger IOR response at these short SOAs reflected an efficient foraging strategy (Klein, 1988;Klein & MacInnes, 1999) to search for new faces.…”

“…Although the current study only used faces with neutral expression, these findings highlight the fact that faces in general are capable of rapidly capturing attention compared to other stimuli. The fact that Weaver et al (2012) found this cue-based RT advantage with overt eye saccades, while this study found it with covert attention (via button press) suggests that a higher level cognitive processing mechanism is at play for facial stimuli, and also supports the evidence that IOR processes can occur with either eye movements or behavioral responses (Klein, 2000). With averted heads, this cue-based RT advantage only occurred for averted-gaze faces, which suggests that there was a gaze-head congruency effect, but only for averted heads.…”

“…Sometimes, these studies use other control stimulus cues (e.g., household objects or scrambled faces) to compare the IOR response to faces (e.g., Taylor & Therrien, 2005;Taylor & Therrien, 2008;Theeuwes & Van der Stigchel, 2006;Weaver et al, 2012). In these paradigms, both types of stimuli should capture attention and lead to an IOR response.…”

“…However, it should be noted that these studies used a relatively narrow range of SOAs (e.g., 800-1,000 ms), so it is unknown what time course IOR may follow for face stimuli. Weaver et al (2012) used two SOAs (200 ms and 700 ms) and found that both faces and household objects induced an IOR response for both short (200 ms) and long (700 ms) SOAs; however, faces reduced saccade latencies toward subsequently presented targets (in both cued and uncued locations), independent of an IOR, only at the short SOA (Weaver et al, 2012). That is, saccade latencies to targets for face trials were faster overall compared to saccade latencies to targets for household object trials, but only at the 200 ms SOA.…”

“…However, based on other research Dodd & Pratt, 2007;Tassinari et al, 1994;Tassinari & Berlucchi, 1995;Tassinari et al, 1989), IOR could also occur at all of the SOAs that were tested. Based on the priming effect or social facilitation effect found by Weaver et al (2012), it was predicted that a similar cue-based RT advantage 1 would occur for faces compared to houses at the early SOA (150 ms), independent of an IOR response. That is, an IOR response is still expected to occur at the 150 ms SOA, but overall RTs should be faster for face trials compared to house trials, regardless of cued or uncued positions.…”