Do I have my attention? Our own face may be special, but it does not grab our attention more than other faces H Keyes, A Dlugokencka, G Tacel |
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Department of Psychology, Anglia Ruskin University, United Kingdom
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| We respond more quickly to our own name and face than to other names or faces, but there is debate over whether this is connected to attention-grabbing properties of self-referential stimuli. Two experiments investigated whether different types of face (self, friend, stranger) provide differential levels of distraction when processing self, friend and stranger names. In Experiment 1, an image of a face appeared centrally (upright or inverted) behind a target name. In Experiment 2, distractor faces appeared peripherally in the LVF, RVF or bilaterally. For both experiments, self-faces did not increase distraction (RT) relative to other faces, and RT was always fastest for self-name recognition. Distractor faces had different effects across the two experiments: when presented centrally, self and friend images facilitated self and friend naming, respectively. This was not true for stranger stimuli, suggesting that faces must be robustly represented to facilitate name recognition. When presented peripherally, no facilitation occurred, but images of friend faces negatively affected RT for recognising strangers’ names. In conclusion, our own face does not grab more attention than other faces, faces must be central to attention to facilitate name recognition, and the distracting effect of a friend’s face is only evident when presented peripherally. |
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