Age-related declines in basic social perception: Evidence from tasks assessing eye-gaze processing.

Slessor, Gillian; Phillips, Louise H.; Bull, Rebecca

doi:10.1037/a0014348

Cited by 85 publications

(101 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…In the younger group though, the anticipatory saccades were systematically biased towards mimicking the distractor gaze, thus illustrating spontaneous gaze following, similar to what was found in previous studies (Kuhn & Tipples, 2011). These results support the view that older participants were less sensitive towards gaze cues (Slessor et al, 2010;Slessor et al, 2008).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…Slessor et al (2008) used a covert gaze cuing task to demonstrate age own-age bias (AOB) towards gaze distractors in younger adults but not in older adults.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Results from these studies have shown that participants detect targets that are looked at by the face more rapidly, than those appearing in the opposite side of the face. Although this gaze cueing effect cannot be inhibited by direct top down control, the magnitude of the effect is influenced by individual differences, such as age (Slessor et al, 2010;Slessor et al, 2008). For example, Slessor et al (2008) showed that whilst both younger and older adults exhibited a significant congruency effect, the effect was significantly smaller in the older than in the younger group.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Although this gaze cueing effect cannot be inhibited by direct top down control, the magnitude of the effect is influenced by individual differences, such as age (Slessor et al, 2010;Slessor et al, 2008). For example, Slessor et al (2008) showed that whilst both younger and older adults exhibited a significant congruency effect, the effect was significantly smaller in the older than in the younger group. These results were used as evidence to suggest agerelated deficits in gaze following and the ability to engage in joint attention with other people.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Age-related decline in the reflexive component of overt gaze following

Kuhn

Pagano

Maani

et al. 2015

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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Abstract:Previous research has found age-related declines in social perception tasks as well as the ability to engage in joint attention, and orienting covert attention (i.e. absence of eye movements) in response to an eye gaze cue. We used an overt gaze following task to explore age differences in overt gaze following whilst people searched for a target. Participants were faster to detect targets appearing at the looked at location, and although the gaze cue biased the direction in which saccades were executed, no age differences were found in overt gaze following.There were however, age effects relating to involuntary eye movements. In the younger adults, anticipatory saccades were biased in the direction of the gaze cue, but this bias was not observed in the older group. Moreover, in the younger adults, saccades that followed the gaze were initiated more rapidly, illustrating the reflexive nature of gaze following. No such difference was observed in the older adults. Importantly, our results showed that whilst the general levels of gaze following were age-invariant, there were age-related differences in the reflexive components of overt gaze following.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…Slessor et al (2008) used a covert gaze cuing task to demonstrate age own-age bias (AOB) towards gaze distractors in younger adults but not in older adults.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Age-related decline in the reflexive component of overt gaze following

Kuhn

Pagano

Maani

et al. 2015

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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“…We removed all RTs greater than 8 s (< .01% of the data in each age group) because they indicate that a participant may have been distracted (see Lee & Knight, 2009). Then, following Slessor et al (2008Slessor et al ( , 2010, we removed all RTs less than 100 ms (too quick to indicate meaningful responding; also < .01% of data), then calculated median RTs individually for each participant, and subsequently transformed these data to reciprocals to control for positive skew and normalize the data. Lastly, four young and three older participants who had at least one gaze-cuing effect more than 2.5 SDs from their group mean were removed from analyses.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Age differences in conscious versus subconscious social perception: The influence of face age and valence on gaze following.

Bailey¹,

Slessor²,

Rendell³

et al. 2014

Psychology and Aging

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Gaze following is the primary means of establishing joint attention with others and is subject to age-related decline. In addition, young but not older adults experience an own-age bias in gaze following. The current research assessed the effects of subconscious processing on these agerelated differences. Participants responded to targets that were either congruent or incongruent with the direction of gaze displayed in supraliminal and subliminal images of young and older faces. These faces displayed either neutral (Study 1), or happy and fearful (Study 2) expressions.In Studies 1 and 2, both age groups demonstrated gaze-directed attention by responding faster to targets that were congruent as opposed to incongruent with gaze-cues. In Study 1, subliminal stimuli did not attenuate the age-related decline in gaze-cuing, but did result in an own-age bias among older participants. In Study 2, gaze-cuing was reduced for older relative to young adults in response to supraliminal stimuli, and this could not be attributed to reduced visual acuity or age group differences in the perceived emotional intensity of the gaze-cue faces. Moreover, there were no age differences in gaze-cuing when responding to subliminal faces that were emotionally arousing. In addition, older adults demonstrated an own-age bias for both conscious and subconscious gaze-cuing when faces expressed happiness but not fear. We discuss growing evidence for age-related preservation of subconscious relative to conscious social perception, as well as an interaction between face age and valence in social perception.Keywords: gaze-directed attention, subconscious processing, own-age bias; emotion; aging Word count: 8,263Running head: AGING AND GAZE-DIRECTION ATTENTION 3 Age differences in conscious versus subconscious social perception: The influence of face age and valence on gaze followingJoint attention is a basic component of social perception that allows us to identify where or what someone is attending to, and to orient to the same thing. It not only drives simple everyday social communication, but is also a critical precursor to more complex social perceptual abilities such as making inferences about the mental states of others (i.e., theory of mind) and comprehending their emotions (Charman et al., 2000). The primary means of establishing joint attention with others is by following their gaze (Driver et al., 1999). Indeed, those with reduced capacity for emotion recognition and theory of mind, such as older adults (for reviews see, Henry, Phillips, Ruffman, & Bailey, 2013;Moran, 2013;Ruffman, Henry, Livingstone, & Phillips, 2008), are also less adept at following gaze-cues (Slessor, Laird, Phillips, Bull, & Filippou, 2010;Slessor, Phillips, & Bull, 2008). While both young and older adults successfully follow the gaze of others, demonstrating a gaze-congruity effect (i.e., responding more quickly to target locations that are predicted by gaze direction compared to those that are incongruent with gaze-cues; Driver et al., 1999), this congruit...

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Individual differences in sociocognitive traits in semi‐free‐ranging rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta)

Diaz,

Hernández‐Pacheco,

Rosati

2024

American J Primatol

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Characterizing individual differences in cognition is crucial for understanding the evolution of cognition as well as to test the biological consequences of different cognitive traits. Here, we harnessed the strengths of a uniquely large, naturally‐living primate population at the Cayo Santiago Biological Field Station to characterized individual differences in rhesus monkey performance across two social cognitive tasks. A total of n = 204 semi‐free‐ranging adult rhesus monkeys participated in a data collection procedure, where we aimed to test individuals on both tasks at two time‐points that were one year apart. In the socioemotional responses task, we assessed monkeys' attention to conspecific photographs with neutral versus negative emotional expressions. We found that monkeys showed overall declines in interest in conspecific photographs with age, but relative increases in attention to threat stimuli specifically, and further that these responses exhibited long‐term stability across repeated testing. In the gaze following task we assessed monkeys' propensity to co‐orient with an experimenter. Here, we found no evidence for age‐related change in responses, and responses showed only limited repeatability over time. Finally, we found some evidence for common individual variation for performance across the tasks: monkeys that showed greater interest in conspecific photographs were more likely to follow a human's gaze. These results show how studies of comparative cognitive development and aging can provide insights into the evolution of cognition, and identify core primate social cognitive traits that may be related across and within individuals.

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Age-related declines in basic social perception: Evidence from tasks assessing eye-gaze processing.

Cited by 85 publications

References 79 publications

Age-related decline in the reflexive component of overt gaze following

Age-related decline in the reflexive component of overt gaze following

Age differences in conscious versus subconscious social perception: The influence of face age and valence on gaze following.

Individual differences in sociocognitive traits in semi‐free‐ranging rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta)

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