Focusing on the face or getting distracted by social signals? The effect of distracting gestures on attentional focus in natural interaction

Psychol Res. 2021 Mar;85(2):491-502. doi: 10.1007/s00426-020-01383-4. Epub 2020 Jul 23.

Abstract

Attentional orienting towards others' gaze direction or pointing has been well investigated in laboratory conditions. However, less is known about the operation of attentional mechanisms in online naturalistic social interaction scenarios. It is equally plausible that following social directional cues (gaze, pointing) occurs reflexively, and/or that it is influenced by top-down cognitive factors. In a mobile eye-tracking experiment, we show that under natural interaction conditions, overt attentional orienting is not necessarily reflexively triggered by pointing gestures or a combination of gaze shifts and pointing gestures. We found that participants conversing with an experimenter, who, during the interaction, would play out pointing gestures as well as directional gaze movements, continued to mostly focus their gaze on the face of the experimenter, demonstrating the significance of attending to the face of the interaction partner-in line with effective top-down control over reflexive orienting of attention in the direction of social cues.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Attention / physiology*
  • Cues*
  • Face*
  • Female
  • Fixation, Ocular / physiology
  • Gestures*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Orientation, Spatial / physiology*
  • Photic Stimulation / methods
  • Young Adult