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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2004

Infant social attention predicts preschool social cognition.

Recent research examining infants' understanding of intentional action claims to be studying the early origins or precursors of children's later theories of mind If these infant understandings are continuous with later preschool achievements, there should be empirical connections between the two. We provide initial evidence that infants' social attention predicts later social cognition. Specifically, 14-month-olds' habituation to human intentional action significantly predicts later preschool mentalistic construal of persons, as measured on a Theory of Mind Scale.

Attention↗
PubMed2004

Early social attention impairments in autism: social orienting, joint attention, and attention to distress.

This study investigated social attention impairments in autism (social orienting, joint attention, and attention to another's distress) and their relations to language ability. Three- to four-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; n = 72), 3- to 4-year-old developmentally delayed children (n = 34), and 12- to 46-month-old typically developing children (n = 39), matched on mental age, were compared on measures of social orienting, joint attention, and attention to another's distress. Children with autism performed significantly worse than the comparison groups in all of these domains. Combined impairments in joint attention and social orienting were found to best distinguish young children with ASD from those without ASD. Structural equation modeling indicated that joint attention was the best predictor of concurrent language ability. Social orienting and attention to distress were indirectly related to language through their relations with joint attention. These results help to clarify the nature of social attention impairments in autism, offer clues to developmental mechanisms, and suggest targets for early intervention.

Attention↗
PubMedDate not supplied

An ACTH4-9 analog enhances social attention in aging rats: a longitudinal study.

Effect of chronic treatment of the ACTH4-9 analog, Org2766, on social attention was studied longitudinally in aging rats. A 6-week treatment temporarily enhanced specific combinations of behaviors of two interacting animals. During a 6-month treatment social attention of treated animals remained at the same level, whereas control animals showed a gradual decrease. Two months after the treatment was ceased this effect on social attention was still present; moreover, the peptide-treated animals performed better in a spatial water maze task three months after the last injection. In addition, the nerve conduction velocity of the major caudal nerves and the sciatic nerve were measured; aged, peptide-treated animals preserved their conduction velocity. The present study shows beneficial long-lasting effects of the ACTH4-9 analog in aging rats on complex behavioral indices and on a physiological measure.

Adrenocorticotropic Hormone↗
PubMed2000

The mutual influence of gaze and head orientation in the analysis of social attention direction.

Three experiments are reported that investigate the hypothesis that head orientation and gaze direction interact in the processing of another individual's direction of social attention. A Stroop-type interference paradigm was adopted, in which gaze and head cues were placed into conflict. In separate blocks of trials, participants were asked to make speeded keypress responses contingent on either the direction of gaze, or the orientation of the head displayed in a digitized photograph of a male face. In Experiments 1 and 2, head and gaze cues showed symmetrical interference effects. Compared with congruent arrangements, incongruent head cues slowed responses to gaze cues, and incongruent gaze cues slowed responses to head cues, suggesting that head and gaze are mutually influential in the analysis of social attention direction. This mutuality was also evident in a cross-modal version of the task (Experiment 3) where participants responded to spoken directional words whilst ignoring the head/gaze images. It is argued that these interference effects arise from the independent influences of gaze and head orientation on decisions concerning social attention direction.

Adult↗
PubMed2026

Internal Bayesian precision modulates the neural representation of social attention: Disentangling implicit and explicit components via model-informed multivariate EEG analysis.

Social attention integrates sensory cues with high-level cognitive expectations, yet the generative mechanisms through which implicit orienting and explicit belief-driven modulation interact remain poorly understood. This ambiguity complicates the distinction between specialized social modules and domain-general attentional processes. We combined a dynamic cueing task with hierarchical Bayesian modeling and model-informed multivariate EEG decoding to address this. Behavioral results revealed a computational double dissociation: symbolic arrow cues elicited heterogeneous strategies, whereas averted gaze recruited a consistent, surprise-driven computational phenotype. At the neural level, time-resolved decoding and temporal generalization revealed a critical representational shift starting approximately 400 ms post-cue. Initial activity related to physical cue features was rapidly replaced by stable neural templates of predicted spatial intent. Crucially, topographical activation patterns showed that this intentional template, characterized by a lateralized temporo-occipital distribution, emerged exclusively under high internal certainty. Furthermore, partial representational similarity analysis demonstrated that late-stage neural manifolds were overwhelmingly organized around integrated spatial goals rather than isolated sensory or motivational signals. These findings suggest that social attention is a specialized generative process, where internal certainty modulates the transformation of social perceptions into actionable top-down intentions.

Bayesian computational modeling↗
PubMed2002

What is the central feature of extraversion? Social attention versus reward sensitivity.

R. E. Lucas, E. Diener, A. Grob, E. M. Suh, and L. Shao (2000) recently argued that the core of the personality dimension of Extraversion is not sociability but a construct called reward sensitivity. This article accepts their argument that the mere preference for social interaction is not the central element of Extraversion. However, it claims that the real core of the Extraversion factor is the tendency to behave in ways that attract social attention. Data from a sample of 200 respondents were used to test the 2 hypotheses with comparisons of measures of reward sensitivity and social attention in terms of their saturation with the common variance of Extraversion measures. The results clearly showed that social attention, not reward sensitivity, represents the central feature of Extraversion.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Taking control of reflexive social attention.

Attention is shifted reflexively to where other people are looking. It has been argued by a number of investigators that this social attention effect reflects the obligatory bottom-up activation of domain-specific modules within the inferior temporal (IT) cortex that are specialized for processing face and gaze information. However, it is also the case that top-down factors may modulate the activation of IT cells. Here we examined behaviorally whether reflexive social orienting is purely automatic or sensitive to top-down modulation. Participants were shown an ambiguous stimulus that could be perceived either as representing EYES or a CAR. In we demonstrated between groups that an automatic shift of attention, equivalent to that triggered by a schematic FACE, occurred only when the stimulus was referred to as possessing EYES. In all participants received the EYES and CAR conditions. When the stimulus was first referred to as a CAR and then as EYES, an attentional shift was only present for the EYES condition. However, when the stimulus was first referred to as possessing EYES, and then later as a CAR, attentional shifts were observed for both conditions. These data indicate that the emergence of a reflexive social attention effect is influenced by top-down mechanisms but in an asymmetrical manner. Top-down processes appear to be effective for triggering IT involvement, that is, for perceiving a stimulus as a face, which produces the social attention effect. But top-down mechanisms are ineffective once IT involvement has been triggered. That is, once a stimulus has been seen as having eyes, it continues to be seen that way, and accordingly, the social attention effect persists.

Attention↗
PubMed2003

Reflexive social attention in monkeys and humans.

For humans, social cues often guide the focus of attention. Although many nonhuman primates, like humans, live in large, complex social groups, the extent to which human and nonhuman primates share fundamental mechanisms of social attention remains unexplored. Here, we show that, when viewing a rhesus macaque looking in a particular direction, both rhesus macaques and humans reflexively and covertly orient their attention in the same direction. Specifically, when performing a peripheral visual target detection task, viewing a monkey with either its eyes alone or with both its head and eyes averted to one side facilitated the detection of peripheral targets when they randomly appeared on the same side. Moreover, viewing images of a monkey with averted gaze evoked small but systematic shifts in eye position in the direction of gaze in the image. The similar magnitude and temporal dynamics of response facilitation and eye deviation in monkeys and humans suggest shared neural circuitry mediating social attention.

Animals↗
PubMed2004

What are you looking at? Impaired 'social attention' following frontal-lobe damage.

Humans are able to predict the behavior of others. Several studies have investigated this capability by determining if social cues, such as eye gaze direction, can influence the allocation of visual attention. When a viewer sees a face looking to the left, the viewer's attention is allocated in the gazed-at direction. These 'social attention' studies have asked if this allocation of attention is automatic or under voluntary control. In this paper, we show that a patient with frontal-lobe damage is impaired at allocating attention to peripheral locations voluntarily, although attention can be allocated there automatically. The patient, EVR, can use peripheral cues to selectively process one location over another but cannot use symbolic cues (words) to allocate attention. EVR is also impaired in using eye gaze cues to allocate attention, suggesting that 'social attention' may involve frontal-lobe processes that control voluntary, not automatic, shifts of visuospatial attention.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Face recognition as a function of social attention in non-human primates: an ERP study.

Epidural event related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from four squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) during the presentation of pictoral stimuli that comprised real human and monkey faces. Subjects viewed tachistoscopically presented stimuli belonging to four different categories: familiar and unfamiliar human faces, and familiar and unfamiliar monkey faces. Familiar faces were subcategorized into top, middle and bottom according to the perceived individual's dominance ranking in a social hierarchy, as rated by human judges observing the group's social behavior. Waveform peak components to monkey and human faces showed similarities in their spatial distribution. However, larger amplitude N1 and N2 components were elicited in response to monkey compared to human faces, particularly over lateral temporo-parietal sites. A similar trend was observed for the P3 component, with maximal differences along midline electrode site. Responses to familiar and unfamiliar monkey faces showed larger N1s to familiar monkey faces and larger P3s to unfamiliar monkey faces. N1 and P3 components elicited by human faces showed no significant differences between conditions. N2 amplitudes were larger over posterior sites for top-ranked monkeys and larger over frontal sites for middle- and bottom-ranked monkeys. Top-ranked human faces elicited the largest N2 components, middle-ranked faces the next largest, and bottom-ranked faces the smallest. N1, N2, and P3 latencies were similarly sensitive to the ranking of human but not monkey faces. These data suggest that non-human primates exhibit evoked potentials to conspecific and non-conspecific faces that are similar in morphology but different in function. Larger amplitude responses to monkey faces suggests increased processing for that category of stimuli. Additionally, monkey ERPs reflect familiarity with conspecifics but not with human faces. Finally, the social status of the perceived individual, or at least the perceived threat posed by an individual, affects the latencies and magnitudes of ERP components produced by the viewer. These data are consistent with social attention hypotheses which propose that higher status (i.e. more dominant or socially meaningful) members of a group receive more attention than lower status individuals.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Progressive decline in social attention in aging rats: an information-statistical method.

The purpose of this study was to assess the earliest signs of behavioral changes during aging. In a longitudinal setup the spontaneously displayed social behavior was observed and analyzed. Social interactions offer an appropriate paradigm for studying a gradual decrease in several categories of social behavior in aging animals. The frequencies and durations of 12 behavioral categories collected over 18 sessions yield a wealth of data, which is difficult to evaluate. Therefore, an information-statistical analysis was used, which compressed the frequencies and sequential organization of behavior into a very sensitive and meaningful index. This index expressing the predictability of behavior does not only show age-related changes but also yields an interpretation of the complex changes seen in frequency distributions. The applied analysis focuses on the predictability of behavior, which may be predominantly determined by the animal's own preceding behavior or by the behavior of its social partner. It is shown that the influence of the behavior of a partner on ongoing behavior declines age-dependently, whereas the influence of the animal's own preceding behavior increases. The simultaneous change in these two indices is interpreted as a progressive decline in social attention, which seems to be characteristic for aging rats. It is concluded that the analysis of the sequential organization of behavior offers a new tool, useful in longitudinal behavioral studies on aging.

Aging↗
PubMed2002

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.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

You must see the point: automatic processing of cues to the direction of social attention.

Four experiments explored the processing of pointing gestures comprising hand and combined head and gaze cues to direction. The cross-modal interference effect exerted by pointing hand gestures on the processing of spoken directional words, first noted by S. R. H. Langton, C. O'Malley, and V. Bruce (1996), was found to be moderated by the orientation of the gesturer's head-gaze (Experiment 1). Hand and head cues also produced bidirectional interference effects in a within-modalities version of the task (Experiment 2). These findings suggest that both head-gaze and hand cues to direction are processed automatically and in parallel up to a stage in processing where a directional decision is computed. In support of this model, head-gaze cues produced no influence on nondirectional decisions to social emblematic gestures in Experiment 3 but exerted significant interference effects on directional responses to arrows in Experiment 4. It is suggested that the automatic analysis of head, gaze, and pointing gestures occurs because these directional signals are processed as cues to the direction of another individual's social attention.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

The effects of graduated exposure, modeling, and contingent social attention on tolerance to skin care products with two children with autism.

Children with autism may display unusual or fearful responses to common stimuli, such as skin care products. Parents of children with autism have often reported that their children will not allow the application of these types of substances to their skin and if the parent persists, the children become extremely upset and anxious. Such responding can interfere with adaptive functioning. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a treatment package involving graduated exposure to steps in an avoidance hierarchy, modeling, and social attention on the responding of two children with autism who displayed fearful responses to skin care products. Both avoidance and acceptance responses to skin care products were measured. Both changing criteria and multiple baseline experimental designs were employed to assess the effects of the intervention package. The results suggest that the package was successful in teaching tolerance of skin products for both children.

Administration, Topical↗
PubMed2005

Task-dependent effects of social attention on saccadic reaction times.

Previous research has shown that saccadic reaction times (SRTs) are shorter when a stimulus is flashed on the same side as the observed gaze direction of another individual. The gaze imitation hypothesis contends that observed gaze evokes the preparation of a saccade toward the same direction. Previous studies of this phenomenon have employed pro-saccade tasks in which the instructed saccade is directed toward the stimulus. In agreement with previous findings, we found that SRTs on pro-saccade trials were shorter when the stimulus appeared in the same direction as observed gaze. Here we also included anti-saccade trials in which subjects were required to look-away from a stimulus and toward its mirror position in the opposite visual field. The gaze imitation hypothesis predicts that subjects will have shorter SRTs on anti-saccade trials in which the stimulus appears opposite the observed gaze direction because they will have prepared already a saccade in that direction. However, contrary to the prediction of the gaze imitation hypothesis, we found that subjects had shorter SRTs on anti-saccade trials when the stimulus appeared in the same direction as observed gaze. Moreover, subjects also made more pro-saccade errors on anti-saccade trials in which the stimulus was presented opposite the observed gaze direction. The results of our study indicate that subjects prepared a saccade in the same direction as observed gaze on pro-saccade trials but opposite the observed gaze direction on anti-saccade trials. These findings suggest that the effect of social gaze cues on SRTs is task dependent.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Do the eyes have it? Cues to the direction of social attention.

The face communicates an impressive amount of visual information. We use it to identify its owner, how they are feeling and to help us understand what they are saying. Models of face processing have considered how we extract such meaning from the face but have ignored another important signal - eye gaze. In this article we begin by reviewing evidence from recent neurophysiological studies that suggests that the eyes constitute a special stimulus in at least two senses. First, the structure of the eyes is such that it provides us with a particularly powerful signal to the direction of another person's gaze, and second, we may have evolved neural mechanisms devoted to gaze processing. As a result, gaze direction is analysed rapidly and automatically, and is able to trigger reflexive shifts of an observer's visual attention. However, understanding where another individual is directing their attention involves more than simply analysing their gaze direction. We go on to describe research with adult participants, children and non-human primates that suggests that other cues such as head orientation and pointing gestures make significant contributions to the computation of another's direction of attention.

Journal Article↗