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Changes in alpha activity reveal that social opinion modulates attention allocation during face processing

Evelien Heyselaar, View ORCID ProfileAli Mazaheri, View ORCID ProfilePeter Hagoort, View ORCID ProfileKatrien Segaert
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/191916
Evelien Heyselaar
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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Ali Mazaheri
School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom
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Peter Hagoort
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The NetherlandsDonders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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Katrien Segaert
School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom
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  • ORCID record for Katrien Segaert
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Abstract

Participants’ performance differs when conducting a task in the presence of a secondary individual, moreover the opinion the participant has of this individual also plays a role. Using EEG, we investigated how previous interactions with, and evaluations of, an avatar in virtual reality subsequently influenced attentional allocation to the face of that avatar. We focused on changes in the alpha activity as an index of attentional allocation. We found that the onset of an avatar’s face whom the participant had developed a rapport with induced greater alpha suppression. This suggests greater attentional resources allocated to the interacted-with avatars. The evaluative ratings of the avatar induced a U-shaped change in alpha suppression, such that participants paid most attention when the avatar was rated as average. These results suggest that attentional allocation is thus an important element of how behaviour is altered in the presence of a secondary individual.

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Posted September 21, 2017.
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Changes in alpha activity reveal that social opinion modulates attention allocation during face processing
Evelien Heyselaar, Ali Mazaheri, Peter Hagoort, Katrien Segaert
bioRxiv 191916; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/191916
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Changes in alpha activity reveal that social opinion modulates attention allocation during face processing
Evelien Heyselaar, Ali Mazaheri, Peter Hagoort, Katrien Segaert
bioRxiv 191916; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/191916

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