What Affects Social Attention? Social Presence, Eye Contact and Autistic Traits

Social understanding is facilitated by effectively attending to other people and the subtle social cues they generate. In order to more fully appreciate the nature of social attention and what drives people to attend to social aspects of the world, one must investigate the factors that influence social attention. This is especially important when attempting to create models of disordered social attention, e.g. a model of social attention in autism. Here we analysed participants' viewing behaviour during one-to-one social interactions with an experimenter. Interactions were conducted either live or via video (social presence manipulation). The participant was asked and then required to answer questions. Experimenter eye-contact was either direct or averted. Additionally, the influence of participant self-reported autistic traits was also investigated. We found that regardless of whether the interaction was conducted live or via a video, participants frequently looked at the experimenter's face, and they did this more often when being asked a question than when answering. Critical differences in social attention between the live and video interactions were also observed. Modifications of experimenter eye contact influenced participants' eye movements in the live interaction only; and increased autistic traits were associated with less looking at the experimenter for video interactions only. We conclude that analysing patterns of eye-movements in response to strictly controlled video stimuli and natural real-world stimuli furthers the field's understanding of the factors that influence social attention

Speaking and Listening with the Eyes: Gaze Signaling during Dyadic Interactions

Cognitive scientists have long been interested in the role that eye gaze plays in social interactions. Previous research suggests that gaze acts as a signaling mechanism and can be used to control turn-taking behaviour. However, early research on this topic employed methods of analysis that aggregated gaze information across an entire trial (or trials), which masks any temporal dynamics that may exist in social interactions. More recently, attempts have been made to understand the temporal characteristics of social gaze but little research has been conducted in a natural setting with two interacting participants. The present study combines a temporally sensitive analysis technique with modern eye tracking technology to 1) validate the overall results from earlier aggregated analyses and 2) provide insight into the specific moment-to-moment temporal characteristics of turn-taking behaviour in a natural setting. Dyads played two social guessing games (20 Questions and Heads Up) while their eyes were tracked. Our general results are in line with past aggregated data, and using cross-correlational analysis on the specific gaze and speech signals of both participants we found that 1) speakers end their turn with direct gaze at the listener and 2) the listener in turn begins to speak with averted gaze. Convergent with theoretical models of social interaction, our data suggest that eye gaze can be used to signal both the end and the beginning of a speaking turn during a social interaction. The present study offers insight into the temporal dynamics of live dyadic interactions and also provides a new method of analysis for eye gaze data when temporal relationships are of interest

Examining ecological validity in social interaction: problems of visual fidelity, gaze, and social potential

Social interaction is an essential part of the human experience, and much work has been done to study it. However, several common approaches to examining social interactions in psychological research may inadvertently either unnaturally constrain the observed behaviour by causing it to deviate from naturalistic performance, or introduce unwanted sources of variance. In particular, these sources are the differences between naturalistic and experimental behaviour that occur from changes in visual fidelity (quality of the observed stimuli), gaze (whether it is controlled for in the stimuli), and social potential (potential for the stimuli to provide actual interaction). We expand on these possible sources of extraneous variance and why they may be important. We review the ways in which experimenters have developed novel designs to remove these sources of extraneous variance. New experimental designs using a ‘two-person’ approach are argued to be one of the most effective ways to develop more ecologically valid measures of social interaction, and we suggest that future work on social interaction should use these designs wherever possible

Appraising the intention of other people: Ecological validity and procedures for investigating effects of lighting for pedestrians

One of the aims of outdoor lighting public spaces such as pathways and subsidiary roads is to help pedestrians to evaluate the intentions of other people. This paper discusses how a pedestrians’ appraisal of another persons’ intentions in artificially lit outdoor environments can be studied. We review the visual cues that might be used, and the experimental design with which effects of changes in lighting could be investigated to best resemble the pedestrian experience in artificially lit urban environments. Proposals are made to establish appropriate operationalisation of the identified visual cues, choice of methods and measurements representing critical situations. It is concluded that the intentions of other people should be evaluated using facial emotion recognition; eye tracking data suggest a tendency to make these observations at an interpersonal distance of 15 m and for a duration of 500 ms. Photographs are considered suitable for evaluating the effect of changes in light level and spectral power distribution. To support investigation of changes in spatial distribution further investigation is needed with 3D targets. Further data are also required to examine the influence of glare

The influence of different combinations of gamma-linolenic, stearidonic and eicosapentaenoic acids on the fatty acid composition of blood lipids and mononuclear cells in human volunteers

This study set out to identify whether stearidonic acid (18:4n-3; STA) can be used to increase the eicosapentaenoic acid (20:5n-3; EPA) content of plasma lipids and cells in humans and to understand more about the effects of increased consumption of ?-linolenic acid (18:3n-3; GLA), STA and EPA in humans. Healthy young males were randomised to consume one of seven oil blends for a period of 12 weeks (9 g oil/day) (n =8–12 subjects/group). Palm oil, sunflower oil, an EPA-rich oil, borage oil (rich in GLA), and Echium oil (rich in STA) were blended in various combinations to generate a placebo oil and oils providing approximately 2 g GLA + STA + EPA per day, but in different combinations. Blood was collected at 0, 4, 8 and 12 weeks and the fatty acid compositions of plasma triacylglycerols, cholesteryl esters and phospholipids and of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) determined. Significant effects were observed with each lipid fraction. Neither STA nor its derivative 20:4n-3 appeared in any of the lipid fractions studied when STA (up to 1 g/day) was consumed. However, STA (1 g/day), in combination with GLA (0.9 g/day), increased the proportion of EPA in some lipid fractions, suggesting that STA-rich plant oils may offer a novel means of increasing EPA status. Furthermore, this combination tended to increase the dihomo-?-linolenic acid (20:3n-6; DGLA) content of PBMCs, without an increase in arachidonic acid (AA) (20:4n-6) content. EPA consumption increased the EPA content of all lipid fractions studied. Consumption of GLA (2 g/day), in the absence of STA or EPA, increased DGLA content with a tendency to increase AA content in some fractions. This effect was prevented by inclusion of EPA in combination with GLA. Thus, this study indicates that STA may be used as a precursor to increase the EPA content of human lipids and that combinations of GLA, STA and EPA can be used to manipulate the fatty acid compositions of lipid pools in subtle ways. Such effects may offer new strategies for manipulation of cell composition in order to influence cellular responses and functions in desirable ways