Look Into my “Virtual” Eyes: What Dynamic Virtual Agents add to the Realistic Study of Joint Attention

Gregory, Samantha; Kelly, Cliona; Kessler, Klaus

doi:10.3389/frvir.2021.798899

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…These avatars were recorded in the Unity game engine making the head turn movements described in the procedure, recordings were then used within PsychoPy3 to devise the online study presented via Pavlovia. We have previously demonstrated the effects of these cues on attention in a basic cuing paradigm (Gregory, 2021) and have argued that virtual avatars provide a realistic, yet fully controlled methodological approach to studying joint attention via dynamic gaze manipulations (Gregory, Kelly, et al, 2021).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These factors may be more influential for older adults with their greater reliance upon context. Therefore, here we used realistic human avatars (see Gregory, Kelly, et al, 2021) who engaged joint attention by looking at the participant prior to making an eye or head movement to look down to a table where contextually relevant objects were presented for encoding. In Experiment 1, the avatar's head moved, presented via a video recording, to look down toward the left, right, or center (neutral) of the table.…”

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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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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Gregory¹,

Kessler²

2022

Psychology and Aging

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Exploring the Effects of Mixed Reality Agents’ Locomotion and Postures on Social Perception Through a Board Game

Chang,

Cao,

Gupta

et al. 2024

International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction

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Influences of eye gaze cues on memory and its mechanisms: The function and evolution of social attention

Yin

2022

Front. Psychol.

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During evolution, humans have formed a priority perceptual preference for others’ gazes. The gaze direction of others is called the gaze cue, conveying environmental information, a critical non-verbal communication in early humans. Recently, empirical evidence has indicated that gaze cues can affect high-level cognitive processes, such as memory. Unlike non-social cues (e.g., arrows), gaze cues elicit special social attention. Research determining the underlying mechanisms suggests that social intention influences observers’ visual attention and influences their memory. This article provides a brief review of the current state of research on the relationship between gaze cues and memory. Future studies should focus on multiple gaze cues, the social nature of gaze cues, and clinical research.

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Look Into my “Virtual” Eyes: What Dynamic Virtual Agents add to the Realistic Study of Joint Attention

Cited by 3 publications

References 50 publications

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

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

Exploring the Effects of Mixed Reality Agents’ Locomotion and Postures on Social Perception Through a Board Game

Influences of eye gaze cues on memory and its mechanisms: The function and evolution of social attention

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