Memory for Gaze Cues Can Attenuate Change Blindness in the Flicker Paradigm

Introduction: Observers often pay attention to objects that are the target of another’s gaze.  The current experiments investigate if memory for gaze cues has similar effects on attention. Methods:  We used the flicker paradigm, in which participants searched for changes in pictures of real-world scenes. In experiment 1, half of the scenes depicted a person looking at the changing object, and the other half depicted no people. In experiment 2, none of the scenes in the flicker sequence contained people, but participants previewed pictures prior to the flicker sequence, and half of the previews depicted a person looking at the changing object. Results: In both experiments, participants were faster to find changes when the changes were cued (Exp 1, t(20) = 2.55, p = .02; Exp 2, t(49) = 7.18, p < .001). Analysis of accuracy suggests it was not due to a speed-accuracy tradeoff.  Conclusions: These results suggest that memory for gaze cues may help guide attention. However, the results do not suggest one way or the other whether this effect is reflexive or unique to social cues.