Social attention orienting integrates visual information from head and body orientation.
Subjects were asked to detect visual, laterally presented reaction signals preceded by head-body cue stimuli in a spatial cueing task. A head rotated towards the reaction signal combined with a front view of a body resulted in shorter reaction times in comparison to the front view of a head and body. In contrast, a cue showing the head and body rotated towards the reaction signal did not result in such a facilitation in reaction times. The results suggest that the brain mechanisms involved in social attention orienting integrate ventrally processed visual information from the head and body orientation. A cue signaling that the other person, in his or her frame of reference, has an averted attention direction shifts the observer's own attention in the same direction.
Hietanen
Jari K
JK
Human Information Processing Laboratory, Department of Psychology, FIN-33014 University of Tampere, Finland. jari.hietanen@uta.fi
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D003071:Cognition; D003463:Cues; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation; D011930:Reaction Time; D012938:Social Perception; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis