Tuning social modulations of gaze cueing via contextual factors

Abstract

Gaze cueing reflects the tendency to shift attention toward a location cued by the averted gaze of others. This effect does not fulfill criteria for strong automaticity because its magnitude is sensitive to the manipulation of different social features. Recent theoretical perspectives suggest that social modulations of gaze cueing could further critically depend on contextual factors. In this study, we tested this idea, relying on previous evidence showing that Chinese participants are more sensitive to gazes on White than on Asian faces, likely as a consequence of differences in perceived social status. We replicated this effect when we made group membership salient by presenting faces belonging to the different ethnicities in the same block. In contrast, when faces belonging to different ethnicities were presented in separate blocks, a similar gaze-cueing effect was noted, likely because no social comparison processes were activated. These findings are consistent with the idea that social modulations are not rigid but are tuned by contextual factors.

Foot cues can elicit covert orienting of attention

“…The present work represents an additional piece of evidence showing that the modulatory role of a given variable becomes evident when an intermixed, rather than blocked, presentation of different stimuli is adopted, which is in line with some previous studies on the gaze-cueing effect (e.g., Dalmaso et al, 2020a ; Pavan et al, 2011 ; Zhang et al, 2023 ). Additional, albeit indirect, evidence for this notion can also be found in studies examining spatial orientation in response to body pictures depicting individuals with neutral or action-oriented postures (Azarian et al, 2016 , 2017 ).…”

“…More precisely, the block design adopted in Experiment 1 suggested that our social attention system treated the two types of foot cues similarly. However, and in line with previous studies (Dalmaso et al, 2020a ; Pavan et al, 2011 ; Zhang et al, 2023 ), an intermixed presentation of stimuli could increase the saliency of the action-oriented foot cue over the neutral foot cue, thus favouring the emergence of an orienting response for the former cue. Therefore, this possibility was examined in Experiment 2.…”

“…The rationale underlying Experiment 2 was based on research on social attention showing that a modulatory role in visual orienting of a social variable can be observed when different types of social stimuli are presented in an intermixed rather than blocked fashion (see, e.g., Dalmaso et al, 2020a ; Pavan et al, 2011 ; Zhang et al, 2023 ). The general idea underlying this approach is that a given stimulus can be less or more relevant to participants if it is presented with a concurrent comparative stimulus (Carvalho & Goldstone, 2017 ).…”

“…The general idea underlying this approach is that a given stimulus can be less or more relevant to participants if it is presented with a concurrent comparative stimulus (Carvalho & Goldstone, 2017 ). As for the social attention literature, for example, Zhang et al ( 2023 ) reported a greater gaze-cueing effect—the covert orienting of attention elicited by averted-gaze faces—for faces belonging to White individuals (vs. Asian individuals), but only when these two types of faces were presented intermixed. Indeed, when the two types of faces were presented in two distinct blocks of trials, the magnitude of gaze-mediated orienting was not modulated by face type.…”

Testing the effects of gaze distractors with invariant spatial direction on attention cueing

“…This framework postulates that gaze cueing may represent the default behavioural response in the absence of further information about the identity or group membership of the face conveying eye gaze. In this regard, it is now well established that several social features can indeed affect gaze cueing (e.g., Carraro et al, 2017; Dalmaso et al, 2012; Hungr & Hunt, 2012; Liuzza et al, 2013; Slessor et al, 2010; Zhang et al, 2021 see Dalmaso et al, 2020b for a review) and that such modulations are further contingent upon contextual settings (Zhang et al, 2023). Hence, the theoretical proposal is that gaze cueing can be framed as a conditionally automatic phenomenon, namely that it is sensitive to moderating processes.…”