Article

You must see the point: Automatic processing of cues to the direction of social attention

Details

Citation

Langton S & Bruce V (2000) You must see the point: Automatic processing of cues to the direction of social attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 26 (2), pp. 747-757. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.26.2.747

Abstract
Four experiments explored the processing of pointing gestures comprising hand and combined head and gaze cues to direction. The cross-modal interference effect exerted by pointing hand gestures on the processing of spoken directional words, first noted by S. R. H. Langton, C. O'Malley, and V. Bruce (see record 1996-06577-002), was found to be moderated by the orientation of the gesturer's head-gaze (Experiment 1). Hand and head cues also produced bidirectional interference effects in a within-modalities version of the task (Experiment 2). These findings suggest that both head-gaze and hand cues to direction are processed automatically and in parallel up to a stage in processing where a directional decision is computed. In support of this model, head-gaze cues produced no influence on nondirectional decisions to social emblematic gestures in Experiment 3 but exerted significant interference effects on directional responses to arrows in Experiment 4. It is suggested that the automatic analysis of head, gaze, and pointing gestures occurs because these directional signals are processed as cues to the direction of another individual's social attention.

Journal
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance: Volume 26, Issue 2

StatusPublished
Publication date30/04/2000
URLhttp://hdl.handle.net/1893/21050
PublisherAmerican Psychological Association
ISSN0096-1523

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People

Dr Stephen Langton

Dr Stephen Langton

Senior Lecturer, Psychology