Taking a real look at social attention

Current Opinion in Neurobiology

Volumn 19, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 52-56

  Kingstone, Alan ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ASSOCIATION; ATTENTION; COGNITION; EYE TRACKING; GAZE; PRIORITY JOURNAL; REVIEW; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT; VISUAL INFORMATION; VISUAL ORIENTATION; VISUAL STIMULATION;

ANIMALS; ATTENTION; COGNITION; EYE; EYE MOVEMENTS; FACE; HUMANS; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR;

EID: 67649380539     PISSN: 09594388     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.conb.2009.05.004     Document Type: Review

References (28)

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20. Tipper C.M., Handy T.C., Giesbrecht B., and Kingstone A. Brain responses to biological relevance. J Cogn Neurosci 20 (2008) 879-891. Past studies had suggested that the attention effects of gaze were unique at a neural level but these studies were confounded by stimulus differences between eyes and other cues, for example, arrows. Using ambiguous stimuli that can be seen as eyes or arrows, but not both at the same time, it is shown that gaze and arrow cuing engage the same neural mechanisms, a dorsal frontoparietal network (FEF and IPS/SPL) and a ventral frontoparietal network (MFG/IFG and TPJ/STS). Importantly, both of these networks are activated by volitional (endogenous) and reflexive (exogenous) orienting, indicating that dorsal and ventral frontoparietal systems cannot be mapped to volitional and reflexive attention, respectively (see [21] for an outstanding review that makes precisely this point).
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22. Kingstone A., Smilek D., and Eastwood J.D. Cognitive ethology: a new approach for studying human cognition. Br J Psychol 99 (2008) 317-345. This target article explains why the basic cognitive research performed in labs, and the findings that they generate, is in principle and in practice unlikely to be of relevance to the more complex situations that are experienced in everyday life. The principles and practice of cognitive ethology are presented as one way to establish a meaningful link between 'lab and life'.
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26. Kuhn G., Amlani A.A., and Rensink RR. Towards a science of magic. Trends Cogn Sci 12 (2008) 349-354. Magicians can control attention, distort perception, and influence choice. This is an excellent summary of recent research which shows that magic offers a unique and powerful way to study social attention in an ecologically valid setting.
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