{"title":"From faces to fingers: Examining attentional capture of faces and body parts using colour singleton paradigm.","authors":"Tarik N Mohamed","doi":"10.1037/cep0000358","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Faces and body parts play a crucial role in human social communication. Numerous studies emphasize their significance as sociobiological stimuli in daily interactions. Two experiments were conducted to examine the following: (a) whether faces or body parts are processed more quickly than other visual objects when relevant to the task and serving as targets, and (b) the effects of presenting faces or body parts as distractors on task reaction times and error rates. The first experiment focused on either faces or body parts, with five different visual objects. The second experiment examined effector body parts (e.g., hands) and core body parts (e.g., the torso), paired with the same visual objects. Thirty-six participants took part in the study, equally divided between Experiment 1 (<i>N</i> = 18) and Experiment 2 (<i>N</i> = 18). Participants were instructed to find if a target item, indicated by a green placeholder, matched a previously presented word cue, while they were instructed to keep ignoring the singleton object that was surrounded by the red placeholder. The results indicated that participants responded more quickly when finding faces but not body parts in Experiment 1. No such advantage was seen in Experiment 2 for either effector or core body parts compared to other objects. Interestingly, when faces were presented as distractors as a singleton, reaction times increased (Experiment 1), indicating that faces capture attention. This effect was not observed for effector or core body parts (Experiment 2). These findings suggest that faces capture attention more effectively than body parts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":51529,"journal":{"name":"Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology-Revue Canadienne De Psychologie Experimentale","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology-Revue Canadienne De Psychologie Experimentale","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1037/cep0000358","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Faces and body parts play a crucial role in human social communication. Numerous studies emphasize their significance as sociobiological stimuli in daily interactions. Two experiments were conducted to examine the following: (a) whether faces or body parts are processed more quickly than other visual objects when relevant to the task and serving as targets, and (b) the effects of presenting faces or body parts as distractors on task reaction times and error rates. The first experiment focused on either faces or body parts, with five different visual objects. The second experiment examined effector body parts (e.g., hands) and core body parts (e.g., the torso), paired with the same visual objects. Thirty-six participants took part in the study, equally divided between Experiment 1 (N = 18) and Experiment 2 (N = 18). Participants were instructed to find if a target item, indicated by a green placeholder, matched a previously presented word cue, while they were instructed to keep ignoring the singleton object that was surrounded by the red placeholder. The results indicated that participants responded more quickly when finding faces but not body parts in Experiment 1. No such advantage was seen in Experiment 2 for either effector or core body parts compared to other objects. Interestingly, when faces were presented as distractors as a singleton, reaction times increased (Experiment 1), indicating that faces capture attention. This effect was not observed for effector or core body parts (Experiment 2). These findings suggest that faces capture attention more effectively than body parts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
期刊介绍:
The Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology publishes original research papers that advance understanding of the field of experimental psychology, broadly considered. This includes, but is not restricted to, cognition, perception, motor performance, attention, memory, learning, language, decision making, development, comparative psychology, and neuroscience. The journal publishes - papers reporting empirical results that advance knowledge in a particular research area; - papers describing theoretical, methodological, or conceptual advances that are relevant to the interpretation of empirical evidence in the field; - brief reports (less than 2,500 words for the main text) that describe new results or analyses with clear theoretical or methodological import.