Searching for people: Non-facing distractor pairs hinder the visual search of social scenes more than facing distractor pairs

There is growing interest in the visual and attentional processes recruited when human observers view social scenes containing multiple people. Findings from visual search paradigms have helped shape this emerging literature. Previous research has established that, when hidden amongst pairs of indiv...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Cook, R. (Author), Gray, K.L.H (Author), Over, H. (Author), Tipper, S.P (Author), Vestner, T. (Author)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier B.V. 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:View Fulltext in Publisher
LEADER 02662nam a2200457Ia 4500
001 10.1016-j.cognition.2021.104737
008 220427s2021 CNT 000 0 und d
020 |a 00100277 (ISSN) 
245 1 0 |a Searching for people: Non-facing distractor pairs hinder the visual search of social scenes more than facing distractor pairs 
260 0 |b Elsevier B.V.  |c 2021 
856 |z View Fulltext in Publisher  |u https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104737 
520 3 |a There is growing interest in the visual and attentional processes recruited when human observers view social scenes containing multiple people. Findings from visual search paradigms have helped shape this emerging literature. Previous research has established that, when hidden amongst pairs of individuals facing in the same direction (leftwards or rightwards), pairs of individuals arranged front-to-front are found faster than pairs of individuals arranged back-to-back. Here, we describe a second, closely-related effect with important theoretical implications. When searching for a pair of individuals facing in the same direction (leftwards or rightwards), target dyads are found faster when hidden amongst distractor pairs arranged front-to-front, than when hidden amongst distractor pairs arranged back-to-back. This distractor arrangement effect was also obtained with target and distractor pairs constructed from arrows and types of common objects that cue visuospatial attention. These findings argue against the view that pairs of people arranged front-to-front capture exogenous attention due to a domain-specific orienting mechanism. Rather, it appears that salient direction cues (e.g., gaze direction, body orientation, arrows) hamper systematic search and impede efficient interpretation, when distractor pairs are arranged back-to-back. © 2021 The Author(s) 
650 0 4 |a adult 
650 0 4 |a article 
650 0 4 |a association 
650 0 4 |a attention 
650 0 4 |a Attention 
650 0 4 |a Cues 
650 0 4 |a Direction cues 
650 0 4 |a female 
650 0 4 |a gaze 
650 0 4 |a human 
650 0 4 |a Human Body 
650 0 4 |a human experiment 
650 0 4 |a Humans 
650 0 4 |a male 
650 0 4 |a perception 
650 0 4 |a reaction time 
650 0 4 |a Reaction Time 
650 0 4 |a social interaction 
650 0 4 |a Social interaction 
650 0 4 |a Social perception 
650 0 4 |a theoretical study 
650 0 4 |a Visual search 
650 0 4 |a Visuospatial attention 
700 1 |a Cook, R.  |e author 
700 1 |a Gray, K.L.H.  |e author 
700 1 |a Over, H.  |e author 
700 1 |a Tipper, S.P.  |e author 
700 1 |a Vestner, T.  |e author 
773 |t Cognition