In the blink of an eye? Evidence for a reduced attentional blink for eyes

authored by: Laura Linnea Schmitz, Basil Wahn, Melanie Krüger, Anne Böckler
Abstract: Eye contact serves as an important social signal and humans show a special sensitivity for detecting eyes. Here, we asked whether people’s sensitivity to eyes would enable them to overcome temporal limitations in visual attention. We used an “attentional blink” (AB) paradigm, in which the second of two visual stimuli presented in quick succession typically cannot be detected. Participants performed a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task and were asked to identify, within a stream of symbols, a target and to detect whether the target was succeeded by a probe. The probe was either an image of an eye (with direct gaze) or of a star. As expected, participants’ detection rate for the star was poor, demonstrating the typical attentional blink. Crucially, detection rate for the eye was significantly better. This reduced attentional blink suggests that people’s sensitivity to eyes is strong enough to circumvent fundamental limitations in visuotemporal attention.
Organisation(s): Institute of Sports Science
Institute of Psychology
Sports and Cognition
Type: Conference article
Journal: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
Volume: 43
Pages: 1900-1906
No. of pages: 7
ISSN: 1069-7977
Publication date: 2021
Publication status: Published
Peer reviewed: Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas: Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Neuroscience, Human-Computer Interaction, Computer Science Applications
Electronic version(s): https://escholarship.org/uc/item/22m7b86k (Access: Open)

BibTeX

@article{bfd0ce240ab140a8b9be459136ea10b6,
title = "In the blink of an eye? Evidence for a reduced attentional blink for eyes",
abstract = "Eye contact serves as an important social signal and humans show a special sensitivity for detecting eyes. Here, we asked whether people{\textquoteright}s sensitivity to eyes would enable them to overcome temporal limitations in visual attention. We used an “attentional blink” (AB) paradigm, in which the second of two visual stimuli presented in quick succession typically cannot be detected. Participants performed a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task and were asked to identify, within a stream of symbols, a target and to detect whether the target was succeeded by a probe. The probe was either an image of an eye (with direct gaze) or of a star. As expected, participants{\textquoteright} detection rate for the star was poor, demonstrating the typical attentional blink. Crucially, detection rate for the eye was significantly better. This reduced attentional blink suggests that people{\textquoteright}s sensitivity to eyes is strong enough to circumvent fundamental limitations in visuotemporal attention.",
keywords = "attentional blink, attentional limitations, eye detection, social cognition, social gaze, visual attention",
author = "Schmitz, {Laura Linnea} and Basil Wahn and Melanie Kr{\"u}ger and Anne B{\"o}ckler",
note = "Funding Information: This research was funded by the DFG (Emmy Noether group, grant number BO4962/1-1).; 43rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society ; Conference date: 26-07-2021 Through 29-07-2021",
year = "2021",
language = "English",
volume = "43",
pages = "1900--1906",
journal = "Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society",
issn = "1069-7977",
}