scholarly journals Individual differences in responsivity to social rewards: Insights from two eye-tracking tasks

PLoS ONE ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. e0185146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bhismadev Chakrabarti ◽  
Anthony Haffey ◽  
Loredana Canzano ◽  
Christopher P. Taylor ◽  
Eugene McSorley
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Tracking Tasks ◽  
Social Rewards

scholarly journals Individual differences in responsivity to social rewards: Insights from two eye-tracking tasks

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bhismadev Chakrabarti ◽  
Anthony Haffey ◽  
Loredana Canzano ◽  
Christopher P. Taylor ◽  
Eugene McSorley
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Social Preference ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Reward Processing ◽  
Autism Spectrum Conditions ◽  
Global Effect ◽  
Social Stimuli ◽  
Tracking Tasks ◽  
Preferential Looking ◽  
Social Rewards

AbstractHumans generally prefer social over nonsocial stimuli from an early age. Reduced preference for social rewards has been observed in individuals with autism spectrum conditions (ASC). This preference has typically been noted in separate tasks that measure orienting toward and engaging with social stimuli. In this experiment, we used two eye-tracking tasks to index both of these aspects of social preference in in 77 typical adults. We used two measures, global effect and preferential looking time. The global effect task measures saccadic deviation toward a social stimulus (related to ‘orienting’), while the preferential looking task records gaze duration bias toward social stimuli (relating to ‘engaging’). Social rewards were found to elicit greater saccadic deviation and greater gaze duration bias, suggesting that they have both greater salience and higher value compared to nonsocial rewards. Trait empathy was positively correlated with the measure of relative value of social rewards, but not with their salience. This study thus elucidates the relationship of empathy with social reward processing.

scholarly journals A Unique Visual Attention Profile Associated With the FMR1 Premutation

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Molly Winston ◽  
Kritika Nayar ◽  
Emily Landau ◽  
Nell Maltman ◽  
John Sideris ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Attention ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Picture Book ◽  
Fragile X ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Social Stimuli ◽  
Fmr1 Premutation ◽  
Tracking Tasks ◽  
Neurocognitive Profile ◽  
Areas Of Interest

Atypical visual attention patterns have been observed among carriers of the fragile X mental retardation gene (FMR1) premutation (PM), with some similarities to visual attention patterns observed in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and among clinically unaffected relatives of individuals with ASD. Patterns of visual attention could constitute biomarkers that can help to inform the neurocognitive profile of the PM, and that potentially span diagnostic boundaries. This study examined patterns of eye movement across an array of fixation measurements from three distinct eye-tracking tasks in order to investigate potentially overlapping profiles of visual attention among PM carriers, ASD parents, and parent controls. Logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine whether variables constituting a PM-specific looking profile were able to effectively predict group membership. Participants included 65PM female carriers, 188 ASD parents, and 84 parent controls. Analyses of fixations across the eye-tracking tasks, and their corresponding areas of interest, revealed a distinct visual attention pattern in carriers of the FMR1 PM, characterized by increased fixations on the mouth when viewing faces, more intense focus on bodies in socially complex scenes, and decreased fixations on salient characters and faces while narrating a wordless picture book. This set of variables was able to successfully differentiate individuals with the PM from controls (Sensitivity = 0.76, Specificity = 0.85, Accuracy = 0.77) as well as from ASD parents (Sensitivity = 0.70, Specificity = 0.80, Accuracy = 0.72), but did not show a strong distinction between ASD parents and controls (Accuracy = 0.62), indicating that this set of variables comprises a profile that is unique to PM carriers. Regarding predictive power, fixations toward the mouth when viewing faces was able to differentiate PM carriers from both ASD parents and controls, whereas fixations toward other social stimuli did not differentiate PM carriers from ASD parents, highlighting some overlap in visual attention patterns that could point toward shared neurobiological mechanisms. Results demonstrate a profile of visual attention that appears strongly associated with the FMR1 PM in women, and may constitute a meaningful biomarker.

scholarly journals Investigating emotion recognition in the first year of life using eye-tracking Methodology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shira C. Segal
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Emotion Recognition ◽  
Emotional Expressions ◽  
First Year ◽  
Facial Features ◽  
Fearful Faces ◽  
Facial Expressions Of Emotion ◽  
First Year Of Life ◽  
Key Words Emotion

The ability to recognize facial expressions of emotion is a critical part of human social interaction. Infants improve in this ability across the first year of life, but the mechanisms driving these changes and the origins of individual differences in this ability are largely unknown. This thesis used eye tracking to characterize infant scanning patterns of expressions. In study 1 (n = 40), I replicated the preference for fearful faces, and found that infants either allocated more attention to the eyes or the mouth across both happy and fearful expressions. In study 2 (n = 40), I found that infants differentially scanned the critical facial features of dynamic expressions. In study 3 (n = 38), I found that maternal depressive symptoms and positive and negative affect were related to individual differences in infants’ scanning of emotional expressions. Implications for our understanding of the development of emotion recognition are discussed. Key Words: emotion recognition, infancy eye tracking, socioemotional development

People Prefer Politicians with Matching Implicit Motives: A Study on the Achievement and Affiliation Motives

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madelijn Strick ◽  
Erik Bijleveld
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Response Surface ◽  
Surface Analysis ◽  
Polynomial Regression ◽  
Implicit Motives ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Social Harmony ◽  
Political Preference ◽  
Affiliation Motive ◽  
Social Rewards

ObjectiveFor centuries, researchers have been interested in the factors determining political preference. These four studies tested the prediction that a match between political leaders’ and voters’ implicit motives – i.e., non-conscious tendencies to strive for particular social rewards – predicts the appeal of leaders.MethodWe used student samples in all studies (Study 1a: N = 100; Study 1b: N = 52; Study 2: N = 72; Study 3: N = 62). We assessed two implicit motives: (a) the achievement motive, which refers to striving for excellence, and (b) the affiliation motive, which refers to striving for social harmony. Correlational analyses and polynomial regression with response surface analysis were used to assess the relation between implicit motives and political preference.ResultsParticipants were more likely to positively evaluate and vote for politicians whose speeches indicated a motive profile that matched their own implicit motives. Thus, people who are relatively achievement-motivated prefer relatively achievement-motivated candidates, and participants who are relatively affiliation-motivated prefer relatively affiliation -motivated candidates. Conversely, explicitly measured motives did not have these predictive effects.ConclusionsThese results indicate that individual differences in implicit motives play a significant role in political preference.

scholarly journals Using eye tracking to test for individual differences in attention to attractive faces

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Valuch ◽  
Lena S. Pflüger ◽  
Bernard Wallner ◽  
Bruno Laeng ◽  
Ulrich Ansorge
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Eye Tracking

scholarly journals Attention shifts to more complex locations with experience

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tess Forest ◽  
Noam Siegelman ◽  
Amy Finn
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Structure Learning ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Attention Allocation ◽  
Complex Structures ◽  
Specific Measure ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Learning Success ◽  
Over Time

Our environments are saturated with learnable information. What determines which of this information gets prioritized for limited attentional resources? While previous studies suggest that learners prefer medium complexity information, here we argue that what counts as medium should change as someone learns an input's structure. Specifically, we examined the hypothesis that attention is directed towards more complicated structures as learners gain more experience with the environment. Participants watched four simultaneous streams of information which varied in complexity. Reaction times to intermittent search trials (Ex. 1, N=75) and eye-tracking (Ex. 2, N=45) indexed where participants attended over the experiment. Using a subject- and trial-specific measure of complexity, we demonstrated that participants attended to increasingly complex streams over time. Individual differences in structure learning also modulated attention allocation, with better learners attending to complex structures from earlier in learning, suggesting the ability to prioritize different information over time gates structure learning success.

scholarly journals Exploring Social Biomarkers in High-Functioning Adults with Autism and Asperger’s Versus Healthy Controls: A Cross-Sectional Analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (12) ◽  
pp. 4412-4430
Author(s):  
Marta Del Valle Rubido ◽  
Eric Hollander ◽  
James T. McCracken ◽  
Frederick Shic ◽  
Jana Noeldeke ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Controlled Study ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Adults With Autism ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Tracking Tasks ◽  
Activity Preference ◽  
Sectional Analysis ◽  
Adults With Asd

AbstractBiomarkers for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are lacking but would facilitate drug development for the core deficits of the disorder. We evaluated markers proposed for characterization of differences in social communication and interaction in adults with ASD versus healthy controls (HC) for utility as biomarkers. Data pooled from an observational study and baseline data from a placebo-controlled study were analyzed. Between-group differences were observed in eye-tracking tasks for activity monitoring, biomotion, human activity preference, composite score (p = 0.0001–0.037) and pupillometry (various tasks, p = 0.017–0.05). Impaired olfaction was more common in the ASD sample versus HC (p = 0.018). Our preliminary results suggest the potential use for stratification and response sub-analyses outcome-prediction of specific eye-tracking tasks, pupillometry and olfaction tests in ASD trials

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