How Does Aging Affect Social Attention? A Test of Competing Theories Using Multilevel Meta-Analysis

McKay, Kate T.; Talipski, Louisa A.; Grainger, Sarah A.; Alister, Manikya

doi:10.1093/geronb/gbac052

Cited by 18 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Specifically, our findings suggest that for most people, gaze cues tended to elicit an early, reflexive shift of attention to the gazed at location which resulted in a response time benefit when the target appeared at the gazed-at location and a response time orienting cost when the target appeared at the gazed-away from location. This is consistent with previous characterizations of the gaze cueing effect as a covert, reflexive shift of attention to the gazed at location (e.g., Friesen & Kingstone, 1998;Frischen et al, 2007;McKay et al, 2021;McKay et al, 2022;Sato et al, 2007).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Uncovering the Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying the Gaze Cueing Effect

Alister¹,

McKay²,

Sewell³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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The gaze cueing effect is the tendency for people to respond faster to targets appearing at locations gazed-at by others compared to locations gazed away from by others. However, although the gaze cueing effect has been studied extensively and has implications for a variety of theoretical and clinical contexts, much is still unknown about the cognitive mechanisms underlying its emergence. Formal evidence accumulation models provide the dominant account of the cognitive processes underlying speeded decisions, however, they have never been applied to understand the gaze cueing effect. In this study we applied the Diffusion Decision Model (DDM) to gaze and arrow cueing data for the first time in order to 1) better understand the cognitive processes underlying the gaze cueing effect, and 2) see whether these processes could be considered the same as those that underlie arrow cueing effects. To achieve these aims, we applied variants of the DDM to three preexisting gaze cueing data sets and one preexisting arrow cueing data set (n = 171, 139,001 trials total), using a combination of individual-level and hierarchical computational modelling techniques. At the group level, people were best described by an attentional orienting mechanism rather than higher-order decision bias or information processing mechanisms. However, we found evidence for individual differences such that not everyone was best described by an attentional orienting mechanism. Further, the same people who were best described by an attentional orienting mechanism for gaze cues tended not to be best described by that same mechanism for arrow cues, suggesting these cueing effects may induce different responses within the same people – although we interpreted this finding cautiously.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Uncovering the Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying the Gaze Cueing Effect

Alister¹,

McKay²,

Sewell³

et al. 2022

Preprint

Self Cite

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“…However, further research is required to better understand how social cues benefit working memory and other cognitive processes in both older and younger adults. A key area for further study is in the use of predictive cues, as this would allow investigation of age differences in how congruent cues are used to benefit cognition when they are known to be useful (see McKay et al, 2022).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating age differences in the influence of joint attention on working memory.

Gregory¹,

Kessler²

2022

Psychology and Aging

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Previous research has demonstrated that older adults make limited use of social cues as compared to younger adults. This has been investigated by testing the influence of gaze cues on attentional processes, with findings showing significantly smaller gaze-cuing effects for older than younger adults. Here, we aimed to investigate whether this would also result in age-related differences in the influence of gaze cues on working memory (WM). We therefore tested the effects of gaze cues from realistic human avatars on working memory across two experiments using dynamic head turns and more subtle eye gaze movements. We compared working memory for items looked at by the cue (congruent), looked away from by the cue (incongruent), and items shown when the cue looked down (neutral). Results demonstrated that for both older and younger adults, gaze cues influenced working memory processes, though there were some important differences related to the nature of the cue. When the cue made a dynamic head turn both younger and older adults showed an equivalent effect of gaze on attention. However, when only the eyes moved, while both the younger and older adults showed an effect of gaze on working memory, there appeared to be a difference in how the participants interpreted the neutral cue, with the older adults appearing to interpret the neutral cues in a similar way to the congruent cues. Overall, we provide important evidence that sharing attention benefits cognition across the life span. Public Significance StatementPrevious research has suggested that older adults make limited use of social cues compared to younger adults. However, research to date has been limited, only investigating effects on attention using simplistic social scenarios that lack ecological validity. Here, we investigated for the first time the effect of dynamic gaze cues of realistic human avatars on working memory and observed that both older and younger adults made use of the social cues and appeared to benefit from sharing attention. Interestingly, the interpretation and use of neutral gaze cues appeared to differ between age-groups, warranting further investigation. These findings question standard notions of age-related cognitive decline, adding to our understanding of social factors that may counteract such decline.

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“…Those review articles cover wide-ranging topics of CA studies, including cognitive abilities ( Reynolds and Finkel, 2015 ), psychosocial protective factors ( Zahodne, 2021 ), environment support ( Lindenberger and Mayr, 2014 ), genetic biomarkers ( Lin et al, 2017 ), neural correlates of cognitive reserve via fMRI ( Anthony and Lin, 2018 ), and the development history of CA ( Drag and Bieliauskas, 2010 ; Anderson and Craik, 2017 ). There is also a bibliometric analysis of CA studies that critically evaluated common theories of age-related cognitive decline ( Ebaid and Crewther, 2020 ), and a meta-analysis assessed the aging effects in attention-related tasks ( Vallesi et al, 2021 ; Mckay et al, 2022 ). Nevertheless, these published reviews combined the findings of CNA and cognitive psychology of aging.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The knowledge domain of cognitive neuroscience of aging: A Scientometric and bibliometric analysis

Jiang

Lin

Liu

2023

Front. Aging Neurosci.

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Cognitive neuroscience of aging (CNA) is a relatively young field compared with other branches of cognitive aging (CA). From the beginning of this century, scholars in CNA have contributed many valuable research to explain the cognitive ability decline in aging brains in terms of functional changes, neuromechanism, and neurodegenerative diseases. However, very few studies have systematically reviewed the research in the domain of CAN, with regard to its primary research topics, theories, findings, and future development. Therefore, this study used CiteSpace to conduct a bibliometric analysis of 1,462 published articles in CNA from Web of Science (WOS) and investigated the highly influential and potential research topics and theories of CNA, as well as important brain areas involved in CAN during 2000–2021. The results revealed that: (1) the research topics of “memory” and “attention” have been the focus of most studies, progressing into a fMRI-oriented stage; (2) the scaffolding theory and hemispheric asymmetry reduction in older adults model hold a key status in CNA, characterizing aging as a dynamic process and presenting compensatory relationships between different brain areas; and (3) age-related changes always occur in temporal (especially the hippocampus), parietal, and frontal lobes and the cognitive declines establish the compensation relationship between the anterior and posterior regions.

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How Does Aging Affect Social Attention? A Test of Competing Theories Using Multilevel Meta-Analysis

Cited by 18 publications

References 44 publications

Uncovering the Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying the Gaze Cueing Effect

Uncovering the Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying the Gaze Cueing Effect

Investigating age differences in the influence of joint attention on working memory.

The knowledge domain of cognitive neuroscience of aging: A Scientometric and bibliometric analysis

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