The functional consequences of social attention for memory-guided attention orienting and anticipatory neural dynamics

Brianna Ruth Doherty, Freek van Ede, Alexander Fraser, Eva Zita Patai, Anna Christina Nobre, Gaia Scerif*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Social attention when viewing natural social (compared with nonsocial) images has functional consequences on contextual memory in healthy human adults. In addition to attention affecting memory performance, strong evidence suggests that memory, in turn, affects attentional orienting. Here, we ask whether the effects of social processing on memory alter subsequent memory-guided attention orienting and corresponding anticipatory dynamics of 8–12 Hz alpha-band oscillations as measured with EEG. Eighteen young adults searched for targets in scenes that contained either social or nonsocial distracters and their memory precision tested. Subsequently, RT was measured as participants oriented to targets appearing in those scenes at either valid (previously learned) locations or invalid (different) locations. Memory precision was poorer for target locations in social scenes. In addition, distractor type moderated the validity effect during memory-guided attentional orienting, with a larger cost in RT when targets appeared at invalid (different) locations within scenes with social distractors. The poorer memory performance was also marked by reduced anticipatory dynamics of spatially lateralized 8–12 Hz alpha-band oscillations for scenes with social distractors. The functional consequences of a social attention bias therefore extend from memory to memory-guided attention orienting, a bidirectional chain that may further reinforce attentional biases.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)686-698
Number of pages13
JournalJournal of cognitive neuroscience
Volume31
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2019
Externally publishedYes

Funding

This research was funded by a James S. McDonnell Foundation Understanding Human Cognition Scholar Award (G. S.), the Rhodes Trust and the Clarendon Fund (B. R. D.), and a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award 104571/Z/14/Z (A. C. N.) and supported by the NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre. The Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging was supported by core funding from the Wellcome Trust (203139/Z/16/Z).

FundersFunder number
Clarendon Fund
Rhodes Trust
James S. McDonnell Foundation
National Institute on Handicapped Research
Wellcome Trust104571/Z/14/Z
NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre203139/Z/16/Z

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