Neurophysiological correlates of visuospatial attention and the social dynamics of gaze processing

Wei, Grace; Rushby, Jacqueline A.; Blasio, Frances M. De

doi:10.3758/s13415-019-00728-w

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…Our findings align with those of Gregory et al (2019), who found that those with SA do not show differences in overt gaze-following behaviour compared with a control group; however, we have extended this finding to the gaze-cueing paradigm, which can capture covert shifts of attention. In showing that this lack of modulation extends to gaze cueing by angry expressions, for which a range of attentional biases in SA have been demonstrated (e.g., Mogg et al, 2004), we have also extended the findings of Gregory and Jackson (2017), Wei et al (2019), and Boll et al (2016), who used only neutral expressions. The sparing of gaze cueing across SA perhaps attests to the fundamental importance of gaze-following behaviour, particularly as a means of detecting important environmental events, gauging the intentions of others, and facilitating social communication (Baron-Cohen, 1995).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 60%

“…Despite strong theoretical grounds for SA modulating the GCE, the few studies that have examined this possibility have not observed a modulation. Two studies included a measure of SA in their gaze-cueing experiments and found no variation in the magnitude of the GCE as a function of SA (Gregory & Jackson, 2017; Wei et al, 2019). However, these studies only employed gaze cues with neutral expressions; the lack of a socially threatening context could therefore explain the absence of any modulation.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Examining the effects of social anxiety and other individual differences on gaze-directed attentional shifts

Talipski

Bell

Goodhew

et al. 2020

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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Gaze direction is a powerful social cue, and there is considerable evidence that we preferentially direct our attentional resources to gaze-congruent locations. While a number of individual differences have been claimed to modulate gaze-cueing effects (e.g., trait anxiety), the modulation of gaze cueing for different emotional expressions of the cue has not been investigated in social anxiety, which is characterised by a range of attentional biases for stimuli perceived to be socially threatening (e.g., Mansell et al., 1999). Therefore, in this study, we examined whether social anxiety modulates gaze-cueing effects for angry, fearful, and neutral expressions, while controlling for other individual-differences variables that may modulate gaze cueing: trait anxiety, depression, and autistic-like traits. In a sample of 100 female participants, we obtained large and reliable gaze-cueing effects; however, these effects were not modulated by social anxiety, or by any of the other individual-differences variables. These findings attest to the social importance of gaze cueing, and also call into question the replicability of individual differences in the effect.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 60%

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confidence: 99%

Examining the effects of social anxiety and other individual differences on gaze-directed attentional shifts

Talipski

Bell

Goodhew

et al. 2020

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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“…Several findings suggest that introduction of movement cues might increase the processing challenge for people with stronger alexithymic traits. For example, alexithymia is associated with an attentional bias toward perceptual motion cues at the expense of socially relevant gaze cues (Wei et al, 2019), and with reduced confidence (but not accuracy) in valence judgments for emotions conveyed in whole-body point-light displays (Lorey et al, 2012). In other work, Borhani et al (2016) showed atypical fear-related modulation of early perceptual processing of IM in those scoring high on alexithymia.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Alexithymia and the Evaluation of Emotionally Valenced Scenes

et al. 2020

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Alexithymia is a personality trait characterized by difficulties identifying and describing feelings (DIF and DDF) and an externally oriented thinking (EOT) style. The primary aim of the present study was to investigate links between alexithymia and the evaluation of emotional scenes. We also investigated whether viewers' evaluations of emotional scenes were better predicted by specific alexithymic traits or by individual differences in sensory processing sensitivity (SPS). Participants (N = 106) completed measures of alexithymia and SPS along with a task requiring speeded judgments of the pleasantness of 120 moderately arousing scenes. We did not replicate laterality effects previously described with the scene perception task. Compared to those with weak alexithymic traits, individuals with moderate-to-strong alexithymic traits were less likely to classify positively valenced scenes as pleasant and were less likely to classify scenes with (vs. without) implied motion (IM) in a way that was consistent with normative scene valence ratings. In addition, regression analyses confirmed that reporting strong EOT and a tendency to be easily overwhelmed by busy sensory environments negatively predicted classification accuracy for positive scenes, and that both DDF and EOT negatively predicted classification accuracy for scenes depicting IM. These findings highlight the importance of accounting for stimulus characteristics and individual differences in specific traits associated with alexithymia and SPS when investigating the processing of emotional stimuli. Learning more about the links between these individual difference variables may have significant clinical implications, given that alexithymia is an important, transdiagnostic risk factor for a wide range of psychopathologies.

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“…During social interactions, individuals with high levels of autistic traits looked less into the experimenter's eyes than individuals with low levels of autistic traits [23]. An electroencephalogram study of a spatial cue task also found that higher AQ scores resulted in a lower cost to incongruence attentional processing caused by gaze cues (smaller P2 amplitude for incongruent minus congruent trials) [42]. These studies suggest that individuals with high autistic traits are less sensitive to gaze, which is more socially meaningful, and thus have de ciencies in gaze-induced social attention.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Effects of Autistic Trait-Related Joint Attention on Visual Working Memory

Wang¹,

Xuan²,

S³

2020

Preprint

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Background: Social attention deficits have been found in individuals with high autistic traits in the non-clinical population However, the eye movement patterns triggered by gaze direction still need to be explored in individuals with different levels of autistic traits, and it remains unknown whether autistic traits can modulate the relationship between joint attention and visual working memory. The aims of this study were to investigate the effect of autistic traits on joint attention and whether autistic traits could further influence visual working memory performance through joint attention. Methods: A total of 46 participants who scored in the top and bottom 20% on the Chinese version of the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ) were divided into high- and low-AQ groups. We used a combination of the cueing paradigm, change detection task, and eye-tracking technique to explore behavioral performance and eye movement patterns. The 50% validity gaze and dot cues were set as social and nonsocial cues, respectively. Results: The low-AQ group showed shorter reaction times for the gaze-cued location but not for the dot condition and not for the high-AQ group. The low-AQ group had a higher fixation proportion, more fixation counts both in the gaze-cued and dot-cued locations, and shorter entry time into the target ROI under the valid gaze condition. The high-AQ group only showed a dot cueing effect with a higher fixation proportion and more fixation counts in dot-cued location.Limitations: The small number of memory items may have led participants to encode polygons into long-term memory, which limits the only interpretation of results on visual working memory. In addition, participants in this study were all undergraduates or graduate students, which may limit the generalizability of our findings to a broader population.Conclusions: This finding suggest that autistic traits influence the pattern of attention triggered by gaze and dot cues. Individuals with low-AQ were more adept at using gaze cues to direct attention, while high-AQ individuals were less sensitive to gaze cues and preferred non-social cues. The difference in joint attention further affected the speed of visual working memory.

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Neurophysiological correlates of visuospatial attention and the social dynamics of gaze processing

Cited by 11 publications

References 71 publications

Examining the effects of social anxiety and other individual differences on gaze-directed attentional shifts

Examining the effects of social anxiety and other individual differences on gaze-directed attentional shifts

Alexithymia and the Evaluation of Emotionally Valenced Scenes

Effects of Autistic Trait-Related Joint Attention on Visual Working Memory

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