Rotating objects cue spatial attention via the perception of frictive surface contact.

We report a new attentional cueing effect, which shows how attention models the physical force of friction. Most objects we see are in frictive contact with a 'floor', such that clockwise rotation causes rightward movement and counterclockwise rotation leftward movement. Is this regularity encoded in spatial orienting responses? In Experiment 1, seeing a clockwise-rotating 'wheel' produced faster responses to subsequent targets appearing on the right vs. left (and vice versa for counterclockwise rotation). Thus, when viewing a lone rotating wheel, we orient attention toward where we predict it will move next, assuming frictive floor contact. But what happens if the rotating wheel is seen touching another visible surface? In Experiment 2, rotational cueing was stronger for wheels touching a visible floor, was abolished for wheels near but not touching another surface, and reversed for wheels touching a ceiling. We conclude that the visual system makes an assumption of frictive floor contact, and rapidly analyzes visual cues to frictive contact with other surfaces, in order to orient attention toward where objects are likely to move next.

May the force be against you: Better visual sensitivity to speed changes opposite to gravity.

Beyond seemingly lower-level features such as color and motion, visual perception also recovers properties more commonly associated with higher-level thought, as when an upwardly accelerating object is seen not just as moving, but moreover as self-propelled, and resisting the force of gravity. Given past research demonstrating the prioritization of living things in attention and memory, here we hypothesized that observers would be more sensitive to an object's speed changes if those speed changes were opposite to natural gravitational acceleration. Across six experiments, we found that observers were more sensitive to objects' accelerations when they moved upward (when those accelerations were opposite to gravity) and less sensitive to their accelerations when they moved downward (when those accelerations were consistent with gravity). Moreover, observers were more sensitive to objects' decelerations when they moved downward (when those decelerations appeared as "braking" against gravity), and less sensitive to their decelerations when they moved upward (when those decelerations were consistent with gravity). This greater visual sensitivity to speed changes opposite to gravity is consistent with previous results suggesting that we readily monitor the world for cues to animacy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Hidden intentions: Visual awareness prioritizes perceived attention even without eyes or faces.

Eye contact is a powerful social signal, and it readily captures attention. Recent work has suggested that direct gaze is prioritized even unconsciously: faces rendered invisible via interocular suppression enter awareness faster when they look directly at (vs. away from) you. Such effects may be driven in a relatively low level way by the special visual properties of eyes, per se, but here we asked whether they might instead arise from the perception of a deeper property: being the focus of another agent's attention and/or intentions. We report five experiments which collectively explore whether visual awareness also prioritizes distinctly non-eye-like stimuli that nevertheless convey directedness. We first showed that directed (vs. averted) 'mouth' shapes also break through into awareness faster, after being rendered invisible by continuous flash suppression - a direct 'gaze' effect without any eyes. But such effects could still be specific to faces (if not eyes), so we next asked whether the prioritization of directed intentions would still occur even for stimuli that have no faces at all. In fact, even simple geometric shapes can be seen as intentional, as when numerous randomly scattered cones are all consistently pointing at you. And indeed, even such directed (vs. averted) cones entered awareness faster - a direct 'gaze' effect without any facial cues. Additional control experiments ruled out effects of both symmetry and response biases. We conclude that the perception of directed intentions is sufficient to boost objects into awareness, and that putative eye-contact effects might instead reflect more general phenomena of 'mind contact'.

Gazing Without Eyes: A "Stare-in-the-Crowd" Effect Induced by Simple Geometric Shapes.

Of the many effects that eye contact has, perhaps the most powerful is the stare-in-the-crowd effect, wherein faces are detected more readily when they look directly toward you. This is commonly attributed to others' eyes being especially salient visual stimuli, but here we ask whether stares-in-the-crowd might arise instead from a deeper property that the eyes (but not only the eyes) signify: the direction of others' attention and intentions. In fact, even simple geometric shapes can be seen as intentional, as when numerous randomly scattered cones are all consistently pointing at you. Accordingly, we show here that cones directed at the observer are detected faster (in fields of averted cones) than are cones averted away from the observer (in fields of directed cones). These results suggest that perceived intentionality itself captures attention-and that even in the absence of eyes, others' directed attention stands out in a crowd.

Intentionally distracting: Working memory is disrupted by the perception of other agents attending to you - even without eye-gaze cues.

Of all the visual stimuli you can perceive, perhaps the most important are other people's eyes. And this is especially true when those eyes are looking at you: direct gaze has profound influences, even at the level of basic cognitive processes such as working memory. For example, memory for the properties of simple geometric shapes is disrupted by the presence of other eyes gazing at you. But are such effects really specific to direct gaze per se? Seeing eyes is undoubtedly important, but presumably only because of what it tells us about the "mind behind the eyes" - i.e., about others' attention and intentions. This suggests that the same effects might arise even without eyes, as long as an agent's directed attention is conveyed by other means. Here we tested the impact on working memory of simple "mouth" shapes - which in no way resemble eyes, yet can still be readily seen as intentionally facing you (or not). Just as with gaze cues, the ability to detect changes in geometric shapes was impaired by direct (compared to averted) mouths - but not in very similar control stimuli that were not perceived as intentional. We conclude that this disruption of working memory reflects a general phenomenon of "mind contact," rather than a specific effect of eye contact.

Minds in motion in memory: Enhanced spatial memory driven by the perceived animacy of simple shapes.

Even simple geometric shapes are seen as animate and goal-directed when they move in certain ways. Previous research has revealed a great deal about the cues that elicit such percepts, but much less about the consequences for other aspects of perception and cognition. Here we explored whether simple shapes that are perceived as animate and goal-directed are prioritized in memory. We investigated this by asking whether subjects better remember the locations of displays that are seen as animate vs. inanimate, controlling for lower-level factors. We exploited the 'Wolfpack effect': moving darts (or discs with 'eyes') that stay oriented toward a particular target are seen to be actively pursuing that target, even when they actually move randomly. (In contrast, shapes that stay oriented perpendicular to a target are correctly perceived to be drifting randomly.) Subjects played a 'matching game' - clicking on pairs of panels to reveal animations with moving shapes. Across four experiments, the locations of Wolfpack animations (compared to control animations equated on lower-level visual factors) were better remembered, in terms of more efficient matching. Thus perceiving animacy influences subsequent visual memory, perhaps due to the adaptive significance of such stimuli.

What are the underlying units of perceived animacy? Chasing detection is intrinsically object-based.

One of the most foundational questions that can be asked about any visual process is the nature of the underlying 'units' over which it operates (e.g., features, objects, or spatial regions). Here we address this question-for the first time, to our knowledge-in the context of the perception of animacy. Even simple geometric shapes appear animate when they move in certain ways. Do such percepts arise whenever any visual feature moves appropriately, or do they require that the relevant features first be individuated as discrete objects? Observers viewed displays in which one disc (the "wolf") chased another (the "sheep") among several moving distractor discs. Critically, two pairs of discs were also connected by visible lines. In the Unconnected condition, both lines connected pairs of distractors; but in the Connected condition, one connected the wolf to a distractor, and the other connected the sheep to a different distractor. Observers in the Connected condition were much less likely to describe such displays using mental state terms. Furthermore, signal detection analyses were used to explore the objective ability to discriminate chasing displays from inanimate control displays in which the wolf moved toward the sheep's mirror-image. Chasing detection was severely impaired on Connected trials: observers could readily detect an object chasing another object, but not a line-end chasing another line-end, a line-end chasing an object, or an object chasing a line-end. We conclude that the underlying units of perceived animacy are discrete visual objects.

The automaticity of perceiving animacy: Goal-directed motion in simple shapes influences visuomotor behavior even when task-irrelevant.

Visual processing recovers not only simple features, such as color and shape, but also seemingly higher-level properties, such as animacy. Indeed, even abstract geometric shapes are readily perceived as intentional agents when they move in certain ways, and such percepts can dramatically influence behavior. In the wolfpack effect, for example, subjects maneuver a disc around a display in order to avoid several randomly moving darts. When the darts point toward the disc, subjects (falsely) perceive that the darts are chasing them, and this impairs several types of visuomotor performance. Are such effects reflexive, automatic features of visual processing? Or might they instead arise only as contingent strategies in tasks in which subjects must interact with (and thus focus on the features of) such objects? We explored these questions in an especially direct way-by embedding such displays into the background of a completely independent "foraging" task. Subjects now moved their disc to collect small "food" dots (which appeared sequentially in random locations) as quickly as possible. The darts were task-irrelevant, and subjects were encouraged to ignore them. Nevertheless, foraging was impaired when the randomly moving darts pointed at the subjects' disc, as compared to control conditions in which they were either oriented orthogonally to the subjects' disc or pointed at another moving shape-thereby controlling for nonsocial factors. The perception of animacy thus influences downstream visuomotor behavior in an automatic manner, such that subjects cannot completely override the influences of seemingly animate shapes even while attempting to ignore them.