Adult aging and social attention: the role of cognitive decline and social motivation.

成人衰老和社会注意力：认知衰退和社会动机的作用。

• 批准号: ES/P005330/1
• 负责人: Louise Phillips
• 金额: $ 64.81万
• 依托单位: University of Aberdeen
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2017 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FP005330%2F1
• 关键词: Adult; aging; social; attention; role

Context: Social isolation is one of the most prevalent problems for older adults, but we know relatively little about age differences in social communication skills likely to be important in initiating and maintaining relationships. The current project will focus on one particular aspect of social communication: why do older people engage less in mutual gaze than younger people? Older adults are less likely than young to attend to, and follow the eye gaze direction of, other people. This is likely to be important, because attending to another's gaze is an informative social cue which facilitates joint understanding and communication. There are two opposing theoretical explanations for age differences in gaze following. First, older adults may follow gaze less than young because of declining perceptual and cognitive processes. Second, older adults may show less gaze following because the typical paradigms used in experimental studies to date are not socially motivating for them. We will use novel experimental manipulations to test the role of the perceptual, cognitive and motivational mechanisms underlying age difference in attention to others' eye gaze. To date, all of the studies of adult age differences in gaze following have used decontextualized pictures of unfamiliar faces. Here we will use innovative eye-tracking technology to test the extent of age differences in attention to gaze in complex social scenes and real interpersonal interactions. Also we will explore the relationship between gaze following in a range of different tasks and measures of broader social functioning in older adults. Aims: The research has three main aims: 1) To test the role of cognitive and motivational mechanisms in age differences in following eye gaze, using novel manipulations of experimental paradigms. 2) To explore how older adults' differential use of gaze cues extend to the processing of more complex social scenes and influence real social interactions with both familiar others and strangers. 3) To establish whether gaze following is related to everyday social functioning and communication skills in older adults. These aims will be achieved by harnessing the applicants' complementary expertise in aging, visual attention, and social cognition to develop novel paradigms using eye-tracking technology to understand social attention in interpersonal interactions.Applications/benefits: We will develop a new model of how aging influences the way in which we attend to other people, and how this relates to social functioning more broadly. The project will also increase understanding of the pattern of younger adults' social attention to older adults, and thus improve models of intergeneration communication. Understanding more about how younger and older people interact is important in developing interventions to improve intergenerational relationships, helping isolated older people improve social interaction skills, and in the longer term to address issues surrounding social isolation. This project will also increase theoretical understanding of the nature of gaze following, and how it is influenced by perceptual, cognitive and motivational factors. A key benefit will be a more integrated and multi-dimensional theory of social attention in old age.

背景：社交孤立是老年人最普遍的问题之一，但我们对社交技能的年龄差异知之甚少，这可能是建立和维持关系的重要因素。目前的项目将关注社交交流的一个特殊方面：为什么老年人比年轻人更少相互凝视？与年轻人相比，老年人不太可能关注他人，也不太可能跟随他人的目光方向。这一点很可能很重要，因为关注他人的凝视是一种信息丰富的社交线索，有助于共同理解和沟通。关于注视跟随的年龄差异，有两种截然相反的理论解释。首先，由于感知和认知过程的衰退，老年人可能比年轻人更少地跟随凝视。其次，老年人可能会表现出较少的凝视追随，因为迄今为止在实验研究中使用的典型范式对他们来说并不是社交动机。我们将使用新颖的实验操作来测试年龄差异背后的知觉、认知和动机机制在注意他人眼睛凝视方面的作用。到目前为止，所有关于成年人凝视跟踪的年龄差异的研究都使用了去背景的陌生面孔图片。在这里，我们将使用创新的眼球跟踪技术来测试在复杂的社交场景和真实的人际互动中注意凝视的年龄差异程度。此外，我们还将探索老年人在一系列不同任务中的凝视跟随与更广泛的社会功能测量之间的关系。研究目的：本研究有三个主要目的：1)通过实验范式的新操作，检验认知和动机机制在注视注视中的年龄差异中的作用。2)探索老年人对凝视线索的不同使用如何延伸到更复杂的社交场景的加工，并影响与熟悉的人和陌生人的真实社交互动。3)研究凝视跟踪是否与老年人的日常社交功能和沟通技能有关。这些目标将通过利用申请者在衰老、视觉注意力和社会认知方面的互补专业知识来开发新的范式，使用眼球跟踪技术来理解人际互动中的社会注意力。应用/好处：我们将开发一个新的模型，说明年龄如何影响我们照顾他人的方式，以及这如何与更广泛的社会功能相关。该项目还将增加对年轻人对老年人的社会关注模式的理解，从而改善代际沟通的模式。更多地了解年轻人和老年人是如何互动的，对于制定干预措施以改善代际关系、帮助与世隔绝的老年人提高社交技能以及从长远来看解决围绕社会孤立的问题非常重要。这个项目还将增加对注视跟随本质的理论理解，以及它如何受到知觉、认知和动机因素的影响。一个关键的好处将是一个关于老年社会关注的更完整和多维的理论。

项目成果

The interplay between gaze and consistency in scene viewing: Evidence from visual search by young and older adults.

• DOI: 10.3758/s13414-021-02242-z
• 发表时间: 2021-07
• 期刊: Attention, perception & psychophysics
• 作者: Fernandes EG;Phillips LH;Slessor G;Tatler BW
• 通讯作者: Tatler BW

Adult Age Differences in Using Information From the Eyes and Mouth to Make Decisions About Others' Emotions.

• DOI: 10.1093/geronb/gbac097
• 发表时间: 2022-12-29
• 期刊: JOURNALS OF GERONTOLOGY SERIES B-PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
• 影响因子: 6.2
• 作者: Slessor, Gillian;Insch, Pauline;Donaldson, Isla;Sciaponaite, Vestina;Adamowicz, Malgorzata;Phillips, Louise H.
• 通讯作者: Phillips, Louise H.