Salera Claudia, Yankouskaya Ala, Gazzaneo Maria Daniela, Bonavita Alessia, Pazzaglia Mariella, Guariglia Cecilia, Pecchinenda Anna
Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
Department of Psychology, Bournemouth University, Poole, United Kingdom.
Front Psychiatry. 2024 Dec 10;15:1470649. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1470649. eCollection 2024.
With ageing there are changes in the ability to orient attention, which affect more endogenous than exogenous orienting. However, orienting attention by the gaze direction of others shares characteristics of both exogenous and endogenous attention and it is unclear how it is affected by ageing. Being able to orient attention by the gaze direction of others is important to establish successful social interactions (i.e., joint attention), and when gaze direction predicts where in the environment salient events occur, it helps to successfully navigate the environment.
Here we investigated whether older individuals learn implicit regularities between the direction of eye gaze and a spatial location where salient events occur. We also assessed the association between orienting attention by the gaze of others and loneliness. Seventy older individuals completed the three-items UCLA loneliness scale and the gaze cueing task, in which gaze cues were non-predictive of target location (block 1), but unbeknownst to participants became predictive of the spatial location where the target appeared (block 2) and then, returned to being non-predictive (block 3).
Findings clearly show that older individuals are less able to orient attention by non-predictive gaze cues, but they successfully learn from environmental regularities implemented with direction of eye gaze. This learning biases attention as it enhances the gaze cueing effect even when the regularities are not present. Importantly, gaze cueing was not affected by self-reported loneliness.
These findings point to a training strategy to improve joint attention in older individuals.
随着年龄增长，定向注意力的能力会发生变化，这种变化对内源性定向的影响大于外源性定向。然而，通过他人的注视方向来定向注意力兼具外源性和内源性注意力的特征，目前尚不清楚它如何受到衰老的影响。能够通过他人的注视方向来定向注意力对于建立成功的社交互动（即共同注意）很重要，并且当注视方向能够预测环境中显著事件的发生位置时，它有助于成功地在环境中导航。
在此，我们研究了老年人是否能学习到眼睛注视方向与显著事件发生的空间位置之间的隐含规律。我们还评估了通过他人注视来定向注意力与孤独感之间的关联。70名老年人完成了三项版的加州大学洛杉矶分校孤独量表和注视线索任务，在该任务中，注视线索在第1阶段对目标位置无预测性，但参与者不知情的是，在第2阶段它变得能够预测目标出现的空间位置，然后在第3阶段又恢复为无预测性。
研究结果清楚地表明，老年人通过非预测性注视线索定向注意力的能力较弱，但他们能成功地从眼睛注视方向所呈现的环境规律中学习。这种学习会使注意力产生偏差，因为即使规律不存在时，它也会增强注视线索效应。重要的是，注视线索效应不受自我报告的孤独感的影响。
这些发现指出了一种改善老年人共同注意的训练策略。
