Western Kentucky University
The Effect of Inversion on Adult Attention Disengagement from Faces
Institution
Western Kentucky University
Faculty Advisor/ Mentor
Cara H. Cashon
Abstract
The disengagement of attention is necessary for basic daily function. In this study, we looked at how the disengagement of visual attention in adults was affected by the inversion of the initial stimulus. This inversion effect is found to be present if the length of the latency between the appearance of an experimental stimulus and the saccade to that item is longer than the period of time of saccade latency to a control stimulus. The inversion effect was studied using 23 adult participants, who were asked to watch a monitor that displayed an image of a human face. This face was shown both upright and inverted in 16 different trials. A peripheral, non-face stimulus was presented after the ASL® eye-tracking software detected that the participant had been looking at the initial stimulus for one second. The saccade latency of the attention disengagement per trial was calculated, and it was found that there was, on average, less than one millisecond of saccade difference between each upright and inverted trial. This shows no correlation between the inversion of a facial stimulus and saccade latencies.
The Effect of Inversion on Adult Attention Disengagement from Faces
The disengagement of attention is necessary for basic daily function. In this study, we looked at how the disengagement of visual attention in adults was affected by the inversion of the initial stimulus. This inversion effect is found to be present if the length of the latency between the appearance of an experimental stimulus and the saccade to that item is longer than the period of time of saccade latency to a control stimulus. The inversion effect was studied using 23 adult participants, who were asked to watch a monitor that displayed an image of a human face. This face was shown both upright and inverted in 16 different trials. A peripheral, non-face stimulus was presented after the ASL® eye-tracking software detected that the participant had been looking at the initial stimulus for one second. The saccade latency of the attention disengagement per trial was calculated, and it was found that there was, on average, less than one millisecond of saccade difference between each upright and inverted trial. This shows no correlation between the inversion of a facial stimulus and saccade latencies.