Brédart, Serge[Université de Liège - ULg > Département des sciences cognitives > Psychologie cognitive - Doyen de la Faculté de Psychologie et des sc. de l'éducation >]
[en] Faces and self-referential materials (eg the own name) are more likely to capture attention in the inattentional blindness (IB) paradigm than others stimuli. This effect is presumably due to the meaning of these stimuli rather than to their familiarity (Mack and Rock 1998). IB has mostly been investigated with schematic stimuli in previous work. In the present study, the generalisability of this finding was tested using photographic stimuli. In support to the view that faces constitute a special category of stimuli, it was found that pictures of faces resisted more to IB than pictures of common objects (Experiment 1) or than pictures of inverted faces (Experiment 2). In a third experiment, the influence of face familiarity and identity (ie the participant’s own face, a friend’s face and an unknown face) on IB rates was evaluated. Unexpectedly, no differential resistance to blindness across these three kinds of faces was found. In conclusion, picture of faces attracted attention more than pictures of objects or inverted faces in the IB paradigm. However, this effect was not dependent on face familiarity or identity.
Fonds de la Recherche Fondamentale Collective d’Initiative des Chercheurs - FRFC
[Université de Liège - ULg > Département des sciences cognitives > Psychologie cognitive >]
