Sex Differences in Attentional Selection Following Gaze and Arrow Cues

Chacón-Candia, Jeanette Alicia; Lupiáñez, Juan; Casagrande, Maria; Marotta, Andrea

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00095

Cited by 11 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Results suggest that when several placeholders are grouped into a perceptual object as a function of Gestalt principles of proximity (Experiment 2), gaze and arrows cues elicit attentional effects similar to those first reported by Marotta and colleagues ( [18], see [38] for replication). In particular, they showed that when objects were present in the display, eye-gaze cues directed attention to the specific part of the cued object, while arrow cues spread attention to…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Eye-Gaze direction triggers a more specific attentional orienting compared to arrows

et al. 2023

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Numerous studies have shown that eye-gaze and arrows automatically shift visuospatial attention. Nonetheless, it remains unclear whether the attentional shifts triggered by these two types of stimuli differ in some important aspects. It has been suggested that an important difference may reside in how people select objects in response to these two types of cues, eye-gaze eliciting a more specific attentional orienting than arrows. To assess this hypothesis, we examined whether the allocation of the attentional orienting triggered by eye-gaze and arrows is modulated by the presence and the distribution of reference objects (i.e., placeholders) on the scene. Following central cues, targets were presented either in an empty visual field or within one of six placeholders on each trial. In Experiment 2, placeholder-objects were grouped following the gestalt’s law of proximity, whereas in Experiment 1, they were not perceptually grouped. Results showed that cueing one of the grouped placeholders spreads attention across the whole group of placeholder-objects when arrow cues were used, while it restricted attention to the specific cued placeholder when eye-gaze cues were used. No differences between the two types of cues were observed when placeholder-objects were not grouped within the cued hemifield, or no placeholders were displayed on the scene. These findings are consistent with the idea that socially relevant gaze cues encourage a more specific attentional orienting than arrow cues and provide new insight into the boundary conditions necessary to observe this dissociation.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 78%

Eye-Gaze direction triggers a more specific attentional orienting compared to arrows

et al. 2023

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“…However, a different pattern of results emerges in paradigms aiming at investigating qualitative differences between gaze and arrows. For example, whereas gaze direction orients attention to the specific spatial location or part of the object looked at, arrows spread attention through the whole cued object (Chacón-Candia et al, 2020 ; Marotta et al, 2012 ). Gaze seems to selectively focus attention on and automatically select the specific location/part of the object looked at, rather than simply initiating the orienting of attention, as arrows do (Marotta et al, 2013 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explicit vs. implicit spatial processing in arrow vs. eye-gaze spatial congruency effects

Narganes-Pineda

Chica

Lupiáñez

et al. 2022

Psychological Research

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Arrows and gaze stimuli lead to opposite spatial congruency effects. While standard congruency effects are observed for arrows (faster responses for congruent conditions), responses are faster when eye-gaze stimuli are presented on the opposite side of the gazed-at location (incongruent trials), leading to a reversed congruency effect (RCE). Here, we explored the effects of implicit vs. explicit processing of arrows and eye-gaze direction. Participants were required to identify the direction (explicit task) or the colour (implicit task) of left or right looking/pointing gaze or arrows, presented to either the left or right of the fixation point. When participants responded to the direction of stimuli, standard congruency effects for arrows and RCE for eye-gaze stimuli were observed. However, when participants responded to the colour of stimuli, no congruency effects were observed. These results suggest that it is necessary to explicitly pay attention to the direction of eye-gaze and arrows for the congruency effect to occur. The same pattern of data was observed when participants responded either manually or verbally, demonstrating that manual motor components are not responsible for the results observed. These findings are not consistent with some hypotheses previously proposed to explain the RCE observed with eye-gaze stimuli and, therefore, call for an alternative plausible hypothesis.

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“…However, gaze might trigger additional attentional processes, which might only be uncovered by approaches aimed at investigating qualitative differences between the two types of cue. For example, it has been found that whereas arrows spread their attentional facilitation through an entire cued object, gaze selectively orients the attention to the specific location or part of the object looked at (Marotta et al, 2012;Chacón-Candia et al, 2020). Beyond cueing paradigms, other tasks have shown distinctive properties of eye cues.…”

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confidence: 99%

Spatial interference triggered by gaze and arrows. The role of target background on spatial interference

Román-Caballero

Marotta

Lupiáñez

2021

Psicológica Journal

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Recent evidence with a spatial interference paradigm has shown that arrows and eye gaze yield opposite congruency effects, arrow target eliciting faster responses when their direction is congruent with their position (standard congruency effect), and gaze producing faster reaction times for incongruent conditions (reversed congruency effect). But in ecological contexts eye gaze tend to be more perceptually complex (i.e., embedded in the whole face) than simple arrows. The present study aimed to replicate this dissociation using whole faces and a comparable non-social target, formed by arrows embedded in a colored geometric background. Whereas the reversed congruency effect with gaze was replicated, the standard spatial interference with arrows was surprisingly absent. A similar outcome appeared when the contrast between the arrows and the task-irrelevant background increased. The results confirm the robustness of the reversed congruency effect with eyes, regardless of whether they are presented alone or within a face. In addition, and importantly, the unexpected absence of the spatial conflict with complex arrow targets seems to be a consequence of higher figure-ground segregation demands, which extend the processing of the task-relevant spatial dimension and, in turn, cause the decay of the location code. This pattern of results, and the provided interpretation, can explain previous unexplained findings in the spatial interference literature.

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Sex Differences in Attentional Selection Following Gaze and Arrow Cues

Cited by 11 publications

References 45 publications

Eye-Gaze direction triggers a more specific attentional orienting compared to arrows

Eye-Gaze direction triggers a more specific attentional orienting compared to arrows

Explicit vs. implicit spatial processing in arrow vs. eye-gaze spatial congruency effects

Spatial interference triggered by gaze and arrows. The role of target background on spatial interference

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