Orienting towards social features in naturalistic scenes is reflexive.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Rosler L
PROVIDER: S-EPMC5526566 | biostudies-other | 2017
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
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Project description:Previous research demonstrated that humans rapidly and reflexively prioritize social features (especially heads and faces) irrespective of their physical saliency when freely viewing naturalistic scenes. In the current study, we investigated whether this preference for social elements already occurs maximally fast during free exploration or whether it is possible to additionally accelerate it by means of top-down instructions. To examine this question, we presented participants with colour photographs of naturalistic scenes containing social features (e.g. heads and bodies) while recording their eye movements. For half of the stimuli, observers were instructed to freely view the images; for the other half of the stimuli, their task was to spot depicted people as fast as possible. We replicated that social elements (especially heads) were rapidly preferred over physically salient image parts. Moreover, we found the orienting towards social elements to be additionally enhanced and accelerated when participants were instructed to detect people quickly. Importantly, this effect was strongest for heads and already evident at the very first fixation. Thus, the present study not only corroborates that the prioritization of social features in naturalistic scenes partially relies on reflexive processes, but also demonstrates that these mechanisms can be additionally accelerated by top-down instructions.
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Project description:According to so-called saliency-based attention models, attention during free viewing of visual scenes is particularly allocated to physically salient image regions. In the present study, we assumed that social features in complex naturalistic scenes would be processed preferentially irrespective of their physical saliency. Therefore, we expected worse prediction of gazing behavior by saliency-based attention models when social information is present in the visual field. To test this hypothesis, participants freely viewed color photographs of complex naturalistic social (e.g., including heads, bodies) and non-social (e.g., including landscapes, objects) scenes while their eye movements were recorded. In agreement with our hypothesis, we found that social features (especially heads) were heavily prioritized during visual exploration. Correspondingly, the presence of social information weakened the influence of low-level saliency on gazing behavior. Importantly, this pattern was most pronounced for the earliest fixations indicating automatic attentional processes. These findings were further corroborated by a linear mixed model approach showing that social features (especially heads) add substantially to the prediction of fixations beyond physical saliency. Taken together, the current study indicates gazing behavior for naturalistic scenes to be better predicted by the interplay of social and physically salient features than by low-level saliency alone. These findings strongly challenge the generalizability of saliency-based attention models and demonstrate the importance of considering social influences when investigating the driving factors of human visual attention.
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Project description:Impairment in social interactions is a primary characteristic of people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Although these individuals tend to orient less to naturalistic social cues than do typically developing (TD) individuals, laboratory experiments testing social orienting in ASD have been inconclusive, possibly because of a failure to fully isolate reflexive (stimulus-driven) and voluntary (goal-directed) social orienting processes. The purpose of the present study was to separately examine potential reflexive and/or voluntary social orienting differences in individuals with ASD relative to TD controls. Subjects (ages 7-14) with high-functioning ASD and a matched control group completed three gaze cueing tasks on an iPad in which individuals briefly saw a face with averted gaze followed by a target after a variable delay. Two tasks were 100% predictive with either all congruent (target appears in gaze direction) or all incongruent (target appears opposite from gaze direction) trials, respectively. Another task was non-predictive with these same trials (half congruent and half incongruent) intermixed randomly. Response times (RTs) to the target were used to calculate reflexive (incongruent condition RT-congruent condition RT) and voluntary (non-predictive condition RT-predictive condition RT) gaze cueing effects. Subjects also completed two additional non-social orienting tasks (ProPoint and AntiPoint). Subjects with ASD demonstrate intact reflexive but deficient voluntary gaze following. Similar results were found in a separate test of non-social orienting. This suggests problems with using social cues, but only in a goal-directed fashion, in our sample of high-functioning individuals with ASD. Such findings may not only explain inconclusive previous findings but more importantly be critical for understanding social dysfunctions in ASD and for developing future interventions.
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Project description:The human visual system is extremely sensitive to biological signals around us. In the current study, we demonstrate that biological motion walking direction can induce robust reflexive attentional orienting. Following a brief presentation of a central point-light walker walking towards either the left or right direction, observers' performance was significantly better on a target in the walking direction compared with that in the opposite direction even when participants were explicitly told that walking direction was not predictive of target location. Interestingly, the effect disappeared when the walker was shown upside-down. Moreover, the reflexive attentional orienting could be extended to motions of other biological entities but not inanimate objects, and was not due to the viewpoint effect of the point-light figure. Our findings provide strong evidence that biological motion cues can trigger reflexive attentional orienting, and highlight the intrinsic sensitivity of the human visual attention system to biological signals.
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Project description:BackgroundImpairments in social cognition contribute significantly to disability in schizophrenia patients (SzP). Perception of facial expressions is critical for social cognition. Intact perception requires an individual to visually scan a complex dynamic social scene for transiently moving facial expressions that may be relevant for understanding the scene. The relationship of visual scanning for these facial expressions and social cognition remains unknown.MethodsIn 39 SzP and 27 healthy controls (HC), we used eye-tracking to examine the relationship between performance on The Awareness of Social Inference Test (TASIT), which tests social cognition using naturalistic video clips of social situations, and visual scanning, measuring each individual's relative to the mean of HC. We then examined the relationship of visual scanning to the specific visual features (motion, contrast, luminance, faces) within the video clips.ResultsTASIT performance was significantly impaired in SzP for trials involving sarcasm (p < 10-5). Visual scanning was significantly more variable in SzP than HC (p < 10-6), and predicted TASIT performance in HC (p = 0.02) but not SzP (p = 0.91), differing significantly between groups (p = 0.04). During the visual scanning, SzP were less likely to be viewing faces (p = 0.0001) and less likely to saccade to facial motion in peripheral vision (p = 0.008).ConclusionsSzP show highly significant deficits in the use of visual scanning of naturalistic social scenes to inform social cognition. Alterations in visual scanning patterns may originate from impaired processing of facial motion within peripheral vision. Overall, these results highlight the utility of naturalistic stimuli in the study of social cognition deficits in schizophrenia.
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