Social attention across borders: A cross‐cultural investigation of gaze cueing elicited by same‐ and other‐ethnicity faces

Zhang, Xinyuan; Dalmaso, Mario; Castelli, Luigi; Fiorese, Alberto; Lan, Yonglong; Sun, Bo; Fu, Shimin; Galfano, Giovanni

doi:10.1111/bjop.12476

Cited by 24 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 61 publications

(117 reference statements)

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“…In recent years, flourishing literature has emerged reporting how cross-cultural differences can impact face processing and, more generally, the elaborations of social stimuli belonging to different ethnic groups (e.g., Caldara, 2017). In this regard, recent works found differences among different ethnic groups tested in their own countries in a number of behaviours supporting social interactions, such as face scanning during real social interaction (Haensel et al, 2020) or gaze-mediated orienting of attention (Zhang et al, 2021). Hence, the variety of methods and scientific backgrounds -deriving from different fields within psychology (e.g., cognitive, social) -allows cross-cultural studies to deeply explore different mechanisms underlying social perception under multiple perspectives.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cross-cultural evidence of a space-ethnicity association in face categorisation

2022

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According to a space-valence association, individuals tend to relate negatively- and positively-connoted stimuli with the left and right side of space, respectively. So far, only a few studies have explored whether this phenomenon can also emerge for social dimensions associated with facial stimuli. Here, we adopted a cross-cultural approach and conducted two experiments with the main aim to test whether a left–right space-valence association can also emerge for other- vs. own-race faces. Asian Japanese (Experiment 1) and White Italian (Experiment 2) participants engaged in a speeded binary classification task in which a central placed face had to be classified as either Asian or White. Manual responses were provided through a left- vs. right-side button. In both experiments, other-race faces elicited faster responses than own-race faces, in line with the well-documented other-race categorisation advantage. Moreover, evidence of an association between space and ethnic membership also arose and, interestingly, was similar in both groups. Indeed, Asian faces were responded to faster with the right-side key than with the left-side key, whereas response side had no effect for White faces. These results are discussed with regard to possible cross-cultural differences in group perception.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cross-cultural evidence of a space-ethnicity association in face categorisation

2022

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“…As for the social stimuli, three male and three female faces (about 300 px width 3 450 px height) were extracted from the MR2 database (Strohminger et al, 2016), which contains high resolution photos of real individuals. Because ethnicity is known to affect gaze cueing (e.g., Zhang et al, 2021a;2021b), only faces belonging to the same ethnicity of the participants (i.e., White faces) were used. For each face, there were three different versions: one with direct gaze (the original photo), one with gaze averted leftwards and one with gaze averted rightwards (these last two pictures were created through photo editing).…”

Section: Star+methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increased gaze cueing of attention during COVID-19 lockdown

Dalmaso¹,

Castelli²,

Galfano³

2021

iScience

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Affiliation with others is a basic human need. The lockdown implemented for counteracting the COVID-19 pandemic has determined an unprecedented situation of social deprivation, forcing individuals to dramatically reduce face-toface interactions. This, in turn, has caused relevant consequences on psychological well-being. However, the impact of lockdown-related social isolation on basic cognitive processes is still largely unknown. Here, we focus on social attention and address gaze cueing, namely the ability to shift attention in response to the gaze of others. This is a hard-wired cognitive mechanism critically supporting the establishment of social interactions and pervasive relationships among individuals. Our results show a stronger gaze-cueing effect during, rather than after, the lockdown, whose magnitude was positively correlated with social isolation distress. These findings indicate that, in a condition of prolonged social deprivation, orienting of attention may be shaped by hypersensitivity to social cues, likely due to the strive to reconnect with others.

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“…The gaze cueing task was delivered to a sample of Italian individuals living in Italy (Experiment 1) and to a sample of Chinese individuals living in China (Experiment 2). Because ethnic membership can deeply shape gaze cueing (e.g., Dalmaso et al, 2015; Weisbuch et al, 2017; Zhang et al, 2021), in both Experiments participants were presented with faces belonging to their own ethnic group. Self-reported measures assessing COVID-related habits and perceptions were also collected.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Face Masks Do Not Alter Gaze Cueing of Attention: Evidence From the COVID-19 Pandemic

Dalmaso

Zhang

Galfano³

et al. 2021

i-Perception

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Interacting with others wearing a face mask has become a regular worldwide practice since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the impact of face masks on cognitive mechanisms supporting social interaction is still largely unexplored. In the present work, we focused on gaze cueing of attention, a phenomenon tapping the essential ability which allows individuals to orient their attentional resources in response to eye gaze signals coming from others. Participants from both a European (i.e., Italy; Experiment 1) and an Asian (i.e., China; Experiment 2) country were involved, namely two countries in which the daily use of face masks before COVID-19 pandemic was either extremely uncommon or frequently adopted, respectively. Both samples completed a task in which a peripheral target had to be discriminated while a task irrelevant averted gaze face, wearing a mask or not, acted as a central cueing stimulus. Overall, a reliable and comparable gaze cueing emerged in both experiments, independent of the mask condition. These findings suggest that gaze cueing of attention is preserved even when the person perceived is wearing a face mask.

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Social attention across borders: A cross‐cultural investigation of gaze cueing elicited by same‐ and other‐ethnicity faces

Cited by 24 publications

References 61 publications

Cross-cultural evidence of a space-ethnicity association in face categorisation

Cross-cultural evidence of a space-ethnicity association in face categorisation

Increased gaze cueing of attention during COVID-19 lockdown

Face Masks Do Not Alter Gaze Cueing of Attention: Evidence From the COVID-19 Pandemic

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