Social prioritisation in scene viewing and the effects of a spatial memory load

Martinez-Cedillo, Astrid Priscilla; Dent, Kevin; Foulsham, Tom · 2023 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.3758/s13414-023-02769-3

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Summary

This study investigates whether the well-documented tendency to preferentially fixate social elements (e.g., people) during scene viewing is disrupted by concurrent cognitive demands. Specifically, the authors examined if increasing the load of a secondary visuospatial working memory task would reduce this "social prioritisation" effect. The research was motivated by conflicting findings in prior literature: while verbal working memory loads did not diminish social prioritisation, other studies suggested cognitive loads could disrupt looking behavior. The authors aimed to determine if social prioritisation is an automatic, obligatory process or if it relies on perceptual resources that compete with spatial memory tasks. The experiment involved 47 participants who performed a dual-task paradigm. While maintaining a set of spatial locations in memory (either one location for low load or six for high load), participants freely viewed scenes containing a social element (a person) and a non-social element (an object). The spatial memory stimuli were presented either simultaneously or sequentially to test if the mode of presentation influenced the competition for attentional resources. The non-social object’s physical salience was also manipulated to assess its impact. Eye movements were recorded during the retention interval of the memory task, and participants subsequently performed a probe recognition task to verify memory load engagement. The results demonstrated that increasing the visuospatial memory load significantly reduced the preference for fixating on social elements. Participants looked less often at the social area in the high-load condition compared to the low-load condition, regardless of whether the memory stimuli were presented simultaneously or sequentially. Additionally, the high-load condition led to more central fixations and reduced exploration of the scene, evidenced by lower fixation entropy. While high-saliency non-social objects attracted slightly more attention, there was no significant interaction between load and saliency. The reduction in social prioritisation occurred even for the first fixation, suggesting that the initial automatic capture by social stimuli is also susceptible to resource competition. These findings indicate that social prioritisation in scene viewing is not entirely automatic or invulnerable to interference. Instead, it appears to rely on perceptual processing resources that are shared with visuospatial working memory tasks. When these resources are taxed by a high memory load, the bias toward social elements diminishes. This challenges the view that social attention is purely obligatory and suggests that the allocation of attention to social stimuli is flexible and dependent on available cognitive resources. The study highlights the importance of considering domain-specific perceptual loads when investigating attentional capture and scene viewing behaviors.

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• attention allocation