This study investigated whether modes of attentional selection (location-based or object-based) are modulated by the cue type, specifically social cues such as eye gaze and pointing fingers, or by a non-social cue, such as an arrow. Earlier studies have demonstrated that the object-based attention effect was found only with arrow cues when presenting a spatial cue at either end of a rectangle: gaze cues did not yield object-based facilitation. We examined whether this deficiency of object-based attention is generalized to social cues such as pointing fingers. We measured the reaction times to the target at each cued location, an opposite side of a cued location in the same object, or the location in a different object equidistant from the cued location for each cue. Results indicated that only the gaze cue weakened the object-based attention effect, even under the condition of participants’ voluntary extension of their attentional focus. The pointing cue induced sufficient object-based facilitation, as did the arrow cue. These results suggest that the deficiency of object-based attention was observed only for the gaze cue, and that it would be caused by a factor that is unique to the gaze cue, which narrows the attentional focus.
ArigaA.WatanabeK. (2009). What is special about the index finger?: The index finger advantage in manipulating reflexive attentional shift. Japanese Psychological Research, 51, 258–265. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5884.2009.00408.x
2.
Baron-CohenS. (1995a). Mindblindness: An essay on autism and theory of mind. MIT Press.
3.
Baron-CohenS. (1995b). The eye direction detector (EDD) and the shared attention mechanism (SAM): Two cases for evolutionary psychology. In MooreC.DunhamP. J. (Eds.), Joint attention: Its origins and role in development (pp. 41–59). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
4.
BrignaniD.GuzzonD.MarziC. A.MiniussiC. (2009). Attentional orienting induced by arrows and eye-gaze compared with an endogenous cue. Neuropsychologia, 47, 370–381. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2008.09.011
5.
CallejasA.ShulmanG. L.CorbettaM. (2014). Dorsal and ventral attention systems underlie social and symbolic cueing. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 26, 63–80. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn
6.
CampbellJ. I.ThompsonV. A. (2012). Morepower 6.0 for ANOVA with relational confidence intervals and Bayesian analysis. Behavior Research Methods, 44, 1255–1265. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-012-0186-0
7.
Chacón-Candia, J. A., Lupiáñez, J., Casagrande, M., & Marotta, A. (2020). Sex differences in attentional selection following gaze and arrow cues. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00095
8.
Chacón-Candia, J. A., Román-Caballero, R., Aranda-Martín,B., Casagrande, M., Lupiáñez, J., & Marotta, A. (2023). Are there quantitative differences between eye-gaze and arrow cues? A meta-analytic answer to the debate and a call for qualitative differences, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 144, 104993. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104993
9.
CohenJ. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. Erlbaum.
10.
CooperriderK.SlottaJ.NúñezR. (2018). The preference for pointing with the hand is not universal. Cognitive Science, 42, 1375–1390. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12585
11.
CsibraG. (2003). Teleological and referential understanding of action in infancy. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 358, 447–458. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2002.1235
12.
DalmasoM.CastelliL.FranchettiL.CarliL.TodiscoP.PalombaD.GalfanoG. (2015). Altered orienting of attention in anorexia nervosa. Psychiatry Research, 229, 318–325. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2015.06.044
13.
DalmasoM.GalfanoG.TarquiL.FortiB.CastelliL. (2013). Is social attention impaired in schizophrenia? Gaze, but not pointing gestures, is associated with spatial attention deficits. Neuropsychology, 27, 608–613. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033518
DuncanJ. (1984). Selective attention and the organization of visual information . Multielement visual tracking: Attention and perceptual organization. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General, 113, 501–517.
16.
EglyR.DriverJ.RafalR. D. (1994). Shifting visual attention between objects and locations: Evidence from normal and parietal lesion subjects. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123, 161–177. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.123.2.161
17.
FriesenC. K.KingstoneA. (1998). The eyes have it! Reflexive orienting is triggered by nonpredictive gaze. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 5, 490–495. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03208827
18.
GalfanoG.DalmasoM.MarzoliD.PavanG.CoricelliC.CastelliL. (2012). Eye gaze cannot be ignored (but neither can arrows). Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65, 1895–1910. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2012.663765
19.
GoldsmithM.YeariM. (2003). Modulation of object-based attention by spatial focus under endogenous and exogenous orienting. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 29, 897–918. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.29.5.897
GregoryN. J.HermensF.FaceyR.HodgsonT. L. (2016). The developmental trajectory of attentional orienting to socio-biological cues. Experimental Brain Research, 234, 1351–1362. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-016-4627-3
22.
GregoryN. J.HodgsonT. L. (2012). Giving subjects the eye and showing them the finger: Socio-biological cues and saccade generation in the anti-saccade task. Perception, 41, 131–147. https://doi.org/10.1068/p7085
23.
GregoryS. E.JacksonM. C. (2017). Joint attention enhances visual working memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 43, 237–249. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000294
24.
GregoryS. E. A.JacksonM. C. (2018). Barriers block the effect of joint attention on working memory: Perspective taking matters. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 45, 795–806. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000622
25.
HietanenJ. K.NummenmaaL.NymanM. J.ParkkolaR.HämäläinenH. (2006). Automatic attention orienting by social and symbolic cues activates different neural networks: An fMRI study. NeuroImage, 33, 406–413. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.06.048
26.
HommelB.PrattJ.ColzatoL.RichardG. (2001). Symbolic control of visual attention. Psychological Science, 12, 360–365.
27.
HoodB. M.WillenD. J.DriverJ. (1998). Adult’s eyes trigger shifts of visual attention in human infants. Psychological Science, 9, 131–134. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00024
LakensD. (2014). Performing high-powered studies efficiently with sequential analyses. European Journal of Social Psychology, 44, 701–710. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2023
LavieN.RoT.RussellC. (2003). The role of perceptual load in processing distractor faces. Psychological Science, 14, 510–515. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.03453
32.
LiszkowskiU.CarpenterM.HenningA.StrianoT.TomaselloM. (2004). Twelve-month-olds point to share attention and interest. Developmental Science, 7, 297–307. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00349.x
33.
MacquistanA. D. (1997). Object-based allocation of visual attention in response to exogenous, but not endogenous, spatial precues. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 4, 512–515. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03214341
34.
MarottaA.CasagrandeM.LupiáñezJ. (2013). Object-based attentional effects in response to eye-gaze and arrow cues. Acta Psychologica, 143, 317–321.
35.
MarottaA.LupiáñezJ.MartellaD.CasagrandeM. (2012). Eye gaze versus arrows as spatial cues: Two qualitatively different modes of attentional selection. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 38, 326–335. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0023959
36.
MarottaA.Román-CaballeroR.LupiáñezJ. (2018). Arrows do not look at you: Qualitatively different attentional mechanisms triggered by gaze and arrows. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 25, 2254–2259. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-018-1457-2
37.
MorganE. J.FreethM.SmithD. T. (2018). Mental state attributions mediate the gaze cueing effect. Vision, 2, 11. https://doi.org/10.3390/vision2010011
38.
PeirceJ.GrayJ. R.SimpsonS.MacAskillM.HöchenbergerR.SogoH.KastmanE.LindeløvJ. K. (2019). Psychopy2: Experiments in behavior made easy. Behavior Research Methods, 51, 195–203. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-018-01193-y
39.
PerretD. I.HietanenJ. K.OramM. W.BensonP. J. (1992). Organization and functions of cells responsive to faces in the temporal cortex. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 335, 23–30. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1348133/
SatoW.KochiyamaT.UonoS.YoshikawaS. (2010). Automatic attentional shifts by gaze, gestures, and symbols. Psychologia, 53, 27–35. https://doi.org/10.2117/psysoc.2010.27
43.
SenjuA.TojoY.DairokuH.HasegawaT. (2004). Reflexive orienting in response to eye gaze and an arrow in children with and without autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45, 445–458. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2004.00236.x
Shaffer, J. P. (1986). Modified sequentially rejective multiple test procedures. Journal of American Statistical Association, 81, 826-831.
47.
SyrjämäkiA. H.HietanenJ. K. (2020). Social inclusion, but not exclusion, delays attentional disengagement from direct gaze. Psychological Research, 84, 1126–1138. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-018-1108-2
48.
TheeuwesJ.Van der StigchelS. (2006). Faces capture attention: Evidence from inhibition of return. Visual Cognition, 13, 657–665. https://doi.org/10.1080/13506280500410949
UlrichR.MillerJ. (2021). Alternative sequential methods in statistical testing: A reply to Lakens (2021) and Erdfelder and Schnuerch (2021). Psychological Methods, 26, 507–512. https://doi.org/10.1037/met0000420
52.
WieseE.MüllerH. J.WykowskaA. (2014). Using a gaze-cueing paradigm to examine social cognitive mechanisms of individuals with autism observing robot and human faces. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Including Subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), 8755, 370–379. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11973-1_38
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
