Social information rapidly prioritizes overt but not covert attention in a joint spatial cueing task

• Published in: Acta psychologica 2020-11, Vol.211, p.103188-103188, Article 103188
• Main Authors: Gobel, Matthias S., Giesbrecht, Barry
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Attention; Covert attention; Cues; Eye; Eye Movements; Humans; Information processing; Inhibition of return; Joint attention; Joints; Overt attention; Reaction Time; Social attention; Social Behavior; Social interactions; Social rank; Social status; Spatial cueing; Visual perception
• ISSN: 0001-6918; 1873-6297
• DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2020.103188

Coordinating actions with others is crucial for our survival. Our ability to see what others are seeing and to align our visual attention with them facilitates these joint actions. In the present research, we set out to increase our understanding of such joint attention by investigating the extent to which social information would be able to prioritize overt (when moving the eyes to attend) and covert (when shifting attention without eye movements) attention in a joint spatial cueing task. Participants saw a cue and detected a target at the same or a different location alongside an unseen partner of either higher or lower social rank. In a novel twist, participants were led to believe that the cue was connected to the gaze location of their partner. In Experiment 1, where participants were told to not move their eyes (covert attention), the partner's social rank did not change how quickly participants detected targets. But in Experiment 2, where participants were free to move their eyes naturally (overt attention), inhibition of return effects (slower responses to cued than uncued targets) were modulated by their partner's social rank. These social top-down effects occurred already at a short SOA of 150 ms. Our findings suggest that overt attention might provide a key tool for joint action, as it is penetrable for social information at the early stages of information processing. •Participants carried out a spatial cueing task with a higher or lower rank partner.•Partner rank modulated inhibition of return effects for overt attention.•Social inhibition of return effects occurred as early as 150 ms after cue onset.•Our results suggest that overt attention is a key tool for joint action.