PSY2002 S2 W4 Social Attention

Question 1

What is top-down attention?

Answer 1

our goal dictate what we attend to

Question 2

What is bottom-up attention?

Answer 2

some types of information are automatically prioritized

Question 3

What are the two types of attention?

Answer 3

Top-down and Bottom-up

Question 4

Is social attention prioritised ?

Answer 4

Social information is also automatically prioritized. We prioritise social information over other non-social information

Social Attention is automatically attending to social Information in our environment.

Question 5

What are we predisposed to ?

Answer 5

interpreting information as social information and looking to social information in our environment

Question 6

How do we interpret information as social information

Answer 6

Finding faces in patterns and Biological motion point light displays

Question 7

How do we look to social information in our environment?

Answer 7

Attending to other people (their bodies, arms, legs, faces….) and preferentially attend to body parts that give information regarding intentions

Question 8

What is social information?

Answer 8

Abstract idea. People vs non-people, faces vs non-face, very strong contrast. Based in being a person

Question 10

What are some methods to study social attention?

Answer 10

Behavioural measures, eye tracking, EEG and fMRI

Question 11

What is an important eye movement ?

Answer 11

Saccade and micro-saccade

Question 12

How many eye movements do we do per second?

Answer 12

3-5 eye movements per seconds

Question 13

What are eye tracking?

Answer 13

tool first build in late 1880s. Modern eye trackers can be either desktop or mobile. Software records saccdes, microsaccades, fixations, pupil dilation.

Question 14

What do we show more attention to in eye tracking research?

Answer 14

people (eyes.)

Question 15

Are social cues important? If so why ?

Answer 15

Their importance. Interacting with other people is crucial to development. Social cues help us learn key social skills.

Question 16

What is the evolutionary perspective

Answer 16

interpreting a social partner’s behaviour & understanding social scenarios assist integration into a social group (Mattson, 2014).

Question 17

What do babies prefer attending to ?

Answer 17

Babies prefer eyes and prefer specifically direct gaze from birth, something is relevant to us, social cue we can’t ignore, it’s automatic.

Question 18

What is one social cue that capture out attention more than others?

Answer 18

Eyes

Question 19

Why does eyes capture our attention more than others?

Answer 19

Eyes give us an insight into what our social partners are paying attention to and helps us understand their thought processes
Evolved to communicate (Kobayashi & Kohsima, 1997)
Eyes both receive AND send information (Risko, Richardson & Kingstone, 2016).

Question 20

What do we perfer: eyes or facial configuration?

Answer 20

we prefer eyes even in mosters

Question 21

What is the developmental approach for attention to eyes?

Answer 21

Within their first week of life babies direct their attention to the eyes in a face (Maurer, 1985)

Question 22

What did Farroni et al. 2002 find on sensitivity to gaze in infants?

Answer 22

17 new-born infants (24h-120h old).
Babies prefer eyes and prefer specifically direct gaze from birth, something is relevant to us, social cue we can’t ignore, it’s automatic

Question 23

What did positive and negative human expertise in gaze perception research find?

Ricciardelli et al. 2000

Answer 23

Can you accurately detect what the direction of the eye is.
Normal polarity when head is centred, it’s quite easier, almost 100% accuracy on detect if it’s left or right. = Very good at normal polarity.

Reversed polarity = we aren’t very good. We think of eyes as the darker area. More likely to be wrong, because they are thinking about the dark regions instead of the light.

Not only do we prefer eyes, but it does also matter what the polarity is (light/Dark)

Question 24

What is gaze cueing?

Answer 24

When we see someone move their gaze, we move our own gaze so that we are both looking at the same location. This can happen automatically.
This is known as gaze cueing.
Gaze cueing has traditionally been investigated using cueing paradigms.

Question 25

What are cueing paradigms?

Answer 25

Originally used by Posner (1980). – Posner type cueing paradigms. Adapted to investigate gaze. If the cue is not the same as the target we need to do an extra process to the correct side. Valid =/= invalid trial

Question 26

What do cueing paradigms show about participants?

Answer 26

Significantly faster to detect a target when it is in same the location shown by the gaze cue (Valid Trials) Slower to detect a target when it is in a different location to that indicated by the gaze cue (Invalid Trials) Even when participants know the gaze won’t predict where the target will appear

Question 27

Why do participants are significantly faster to detect a target when it's in same the location and shown by the gaze cue?

Answer 27

When we see the gaze cue we move our own eyes in the same direction. So we’re faster to find targets that the appear in that location. We have to move our eyes away from where the gaze is looking to find the target in a different location

Question 28

What are some real world implication of social attention ?

Answer 28

direct our attention to important information within our environment. Helps us to plan our own actions. Gives us an insight into other people's intentions

Question 29

What does reciprocal eye contact and attention to social information ?

Answer 29

allows us to fit in as a member of a social group

Question 30

Can babies follow a gaze?

Answer 30

3M - follow gaze 12M - they can Orient their attention to the location of a gaze Joint attention

Question 31

What is joint attention?

Answer 31

Communicates attention and desires Alerts us to important aspects of the environment Facilitates language acquisition Pre-cursor to ToM development

Question 32

What are EEGs measuring?

Answer 32

EEG measures electrical signals generated by the brain through electrodes placed at the scalp.

Question 33

Wat are ERPs?

Answer 33

An ERP (Event-related potential) is the electrophysiological response to a stimulus. Specific ERPs associated with certain stimuli

Question 34

What is associated with faces? | EEGs

Answer 34

N170 much greater amplitude to faces then to other stimuli

Question 35

What was the findings on N170 and upright/inverted human faces? | Rousselet et al. 2004

Answer 35

N170 larger and delayed for inverted faces, potentially reflecting “additional effort” by the face-processing neurons

Question 36

What was the findings on N170 and upright/inverted animal faces? | Rousselet et al. 2004

Answer 36

N170 present for animal faces, with no inversion effect. Animal face stimuli are processed as faces. We still treat them differently.

Question 37

What insight do fMRI bring about social attention?

Answer 37

Not just one single brain region implicated in social attention, MANY regions: Parts of the attention network, including areas implicated in goal-directed and exogenous attention (pSTS, SPL, FEF) Areas responsible for coding gaze direction (aSTS), eye contact and emotional responses to gaze (amygdala/hippocampus) Areas involved with facial identify recognition (fusiform gyrus) and theory of mind processing (medial prefrontal cortex, pSTS, TPJ).

Question 38

What did George et al. 2001 find?

Answer 38

Greater activation in fusiform gyrus ‘Fusiform face area’ to direct vs averted gaze

Question 39

What should be consider in social cognition research?

Answer 39

Live versus video Direct versus averted gaze Different stages of conversation

Question 40

What are stages of conversation ? | Experimenter Eye contact - Freeth et al., 2013

Answer 40

Cognitive load, turn taking, social norms,

Question 41

What were the findings of Experimenter Eye contact - Freeth et al., 2013?

Answer 41

Y Axis: Eye contact – no eye contact Positive score = looked more to area when the experimenter made eye contact

Question 42

What is the cognitive load stage? | Experimenter Eye contact - Freeth et al., 2013

Answer 42

Reduce cognitive load by averting gaze

Question 43

What is the turn taking stage? | Experimenter Eye contact - Freeth et al., 2013

Answer 43

direct gaze indicates listening to our social partners. Averted gaze indicates we haven't finished speaking

Question 44

What is the social norms stage ? | Experimenter Eye contact - Freeth et al., 2013

Answer 44

"look at me when i'm talking to you"

Question 45

What was the study of live versus video social attention ?

Answer 45

Thirty-two American infants (English first language) received Chinese lessons. Control participants: same training but with English words Test: trained head-turn when two different sounds (phonemes) are heard Infants who received the Chinese language sessions showed significant effect of learning in the live condition ONLY

Question 46

What were the findings of neurodivergence and social attention on face fixation ? | Freeth & Bugembe 2019

Answer 46

- Direct vs averted gaze – neurotypical generally focused on the face but autistic people were less attentive to faces. Are people maintaining eye contact with the mouth. Autistic people are more likely to look at the mouth and less likely to look at the eyes.

Question 47

What is social attention?

Answer 47

attention to other people We are sensitive to the behaviour of others But we are especially sensitive to people's eyes and the information they may contain

Question 48

What methods can be used to assess Social Attention Processes?

Answer 48

Behavioural assessment Eye-tracking EEG fMRI

Question 49

Does stimulus type matter? | Chevallier et al. 2015

Answer 49

Autistic vs Neurotypical children Research Question: Can eye movements predict diagnostic classification? Measure: Total fixation duration to faces PTT were shown different kind of stimuli: A = static display of people and objects, B = videos of two faces and two backgrounds not interacting, C = interactive display where people are interacting with backgroud/objects. Results: Clear differences to the Interactive Stimuli only (C)

Question 50

What factors can influence social attention?

Answer 50

Conversation phase Social partner eye contact Autism diagnosis Live vs Pre-recorded stimulus

Question 51

What is the difference in autistic people and gaze?

Answer 51

Autistic adults are lesss likely to look at people's eye when having a conversation, wether the other person's gaze is averted or direct, and whether the other person is talking or listen.

Question 52

What is the dfference in neurotypical and autistic children and where they focus their gaze | Chevalier 2015

Answer 52

Autistic and neurotypical children equally likely to look at face in A and B bt when people were doing things in the situation autistic people are more likely to look away from the faces.

Question 53

What did studying gaze following in the real world say about the difference in autistic and neurotypical gaze? | Freeth et al. 2020

Answer 53

Gaze Following Task: showed them a board with colours and shapes across from the experiments. The experimenter looked at one object and the PTT had to look at what the experimenter was looking at on their own board. Results: There was a difference between autistic adults and neurotypical. the differences were quite small. Autistic people are slightly less good at following gaze