Does Increasing Ecological Validity Enhance Older Adults’ Gaze Following?
Creators: name: McKay, Kate T
Publisher: name: Open Science Framework
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Cognitive Psychology
subject: Psychology
subject: FOS: Psychology
subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences

description: Does Increasing Ecological Validity Enhance Older Adults’ Gaze Following? Preregistration Document 22/02/2022 Others’ directional eye gaze confers substantial social information to the observer. Following others’ eye gaze and, in doing so, engaging in joint attention, is considered a critical and core component of human social cognition (Stephenson et al., 2021). In experimental studies, the extent to which an individual engages in gaze following upon the observation of others’ averted gaze has conventionally been measured using the gaze-cueing paradigm (Friesen &amp; Kingstone, 1998). Within this task, individuals respond to targets that appear either at the left or right hand-side of the screen as quickly and as accurately as possible. Before each target is presented however, a centrally located face with averted gaze towards either the left or to the right hand-side of the screen is presented. Each target can therefore be categorized as being gaze-cued (appearing at the location the gaze cue looked towards) or gaze-miscued (appearing at the location the gaze cue looked away from). Gaze following – an attention shift via the gaze cue stimulus – is considered to have occurred when response times to gaze-cued targets are faster than response times to gaze-miscued targets. The gaze-cueing effect is highly robust in healthy adults (McKay et al., in press), but experimental evidence now indicates it may decline with age. Although older adults exhibit a gaze-cueing effect, relative to younger adults the magnitude of that effect is significantly reduced (McKay et al., under review). This age-related decline also emerges irrespective of whether gaze-cues are informative regarding the location of the upcoming target or not, indicating that both reflexive (emerging following non-predictive gaze cues) and volitional (emerging following predictive gaze cues) gaze-cueing is affected. However, the age effect for volitional gaze following was substantially larger, with the specific pattern of results suggesting that this was due to younger (but not older) adults exhibiting a boost in gaze-cueing following predictive gaze cues. The finding that predictive gaze cues seem to boost younger adults’ gaze-cueing is consistent with Olk and Kingstone’s (2015) proposal that volitional effects – arising from predictive cues that produce reflexive orienting in and of themselves – have an additive effect on attentional cueing. That is, across both predictive and non-predictive tasks, reflexive stimulus-driven attention should occur, given the presence of the stimulus in all trials, irrespective of predictiveness. However, when cues are predictive, additional volitional top-down orienting occurs which ‘boosts’ attentional cueing effects. The finding that this ‘boost’ is only seen for younger adults therefore aligns with the cognitive decline model of social cognitive ageing, which predict age-related reductions should particularly affect volitional processes. However, all studies in this literature to date have used gaze-cue stimuli that have poor ecological validity. At most, illusory biological motion has been present via the presentation of multiple slightly different images wherein the gaze cue shifts from direct to averted across the trial (e.g., as in Dalmaso et al., 2015; Nagy et al., 2020; Slessor et al., 2008). Most studies, however, presented only a single static averted gaze cue (e.g., as in Bailey et al., 2014; Deroche et al., 2016; Gayzur et al., 2014; Slessor et al., 2016). These methodological approaches provide excellent laboratory control but raise obvious questions about whether the same age effects would emerge when more realistic stimuli and methods are used. Ecological validity is an important consideration in the study of almost all types of psychological phenomena, and for understanding people in general, but it assumes particular significance in any consideration of age effects. This is because the degree to which a task uses stimuli that are true-to life or ecologically valid is also likely to influence the extent to which that task assumes meaningfulness and relevance to the participant. Extensive literature reveals motivational shifts with ageing, whereby personally relevant and meaningful goals are increasingly prioritized with advancing age (see Carstensen, 2021). Rather than cognitive decline disrupting volitional gaze following, older adults may therefore not exhibit a boost for predictive gaze cues on conventional gaze-cueing tasks simply owing to a decreased motivation to engage with the standard task. By using a gaze-cueing task with greater ecological validity, this study will provide novel data that helps to differentiate these two competing possibilities. To achieve this goal, younger and older adults will be asked to complete two predictive gaze cueing tasks (in a counterbalanced order). One will closely follow a previously used paradigm with standard static face stimuli (Slessor et al., 2016 specifically). The other will be the same paradigm, but will use stimuli that have enhanced ecological validity. If age-related differences in motivation contribute to age-differences in volitional gaze-cued attention, the age-effect in gaze-cueing should be attenuated for the task that has enhanced ecological validity relative to the standard gaze-cueing task. Specifically, there should be a three way interaction between gaze cueing condition, age group, and ecological validity such that the effect of age-group (older adults’ reduced gaze cueing effect) on the effect of gaze cue type (faster response times on gaze-cued relative to gaze-miscued trials) will differ depending on the tasks’ ecological validity (the effect of age on the effect of gaze-cueing condition will be smaller when cues are more ecologically valid). Stimuli Examples of the gaze stimuli are shown in Figure 1. For the standard task, grey scale photographs of four actors (two males, two females) with neutral expressions will be used from the FEEST database (Young et al., 2002). The stimuli’s gaze was precisely manipulated by the study authors (Slessor et al., 2016), and we have acquired these stimuli from the study authors for use in the present study. For the enhanced ecological validity task, we will use naturalistic videos of four actors (two males, two females) shifting their gaze. For both types of stimuli, as in Slessor et al. (2016) the target will be an asterisk of approximately 1x1cms and the fixation cross will be a plus sign. Predictive Gaze-Cueing Procedure Number of trials. As in Slessor et al. (2016), there will be 96 trials for each gaze-cueing task. Two thirds of the trials (64 with 16 per actor and 32 left targets and 32 right targets) will be gaze-cued and one third (32 with 8 per actor and 16 left targets and 16 right targets) will be gaze-miscued. The 96 trials per task will be presented randomly within a single block. There will therefore be two blocks. The order of these two blocks will be counterbalanced randomly across participants with a one-minute break given in-between. Instructions. Participants will be instructed to maintain fixation on the fixation cross as is typical for gaze-cueing tasks. As in Slessor et al. (2016) participants will perform a speeded localization task wherein they will be instructed to respond to whether the target asterisk appeared at the left or the right of the screen by making key presses. Trial series. The fixation cross will appear alone in the centre of the screen for 1000ms (as in Slessor et al., 2016). However, in contrast to Slessor et al. (2016), the fixation cross will remain on the screen throughout the entire trial series to facilitate gaze fixation. In the standard paradigm, the stimulus with direct gaze will then be presented for 80 ms. This will be done to equate the presence of prior direct gaze across the two tasks because the enhanced ecological validity stimuli have a direct gaze starting point. This will then be followed by the averted gaze cue stimuli for 220ms. In the enhanced ecological validity paradigm, the video of the face with eye gaze moving from direct to averted will be presented. The total length of the video is 300ms comprising 80ms of direct gaze, 32ms of shifting gaze, and 188ms of full averted gaze. Figure 1 shows a schematised examples of the respective stimuli across time. As in Slessor et al. (2016), following stimulus presentations, the face image or video will disappear, and the target stimuli will appear at either the left or right (approximately 10.5cm to the left or right of the centre of the fixation cross). The stimuli will remain on-screen until a response is executed. Thereafter, 500ms of noise will be presented as a mask to ensure that image aftereffects do not affect subsequent trial performance. Power Analysis Slessor et al. (2016) Study 2 reported a significant gaze cue validity X age interaction (ηp2 = .18) in a predictive gaze-cueing task such that older adults exhibited reduced gaze-cueing relative to younger adults. We conducted an a priori power analysis in G*Power 3.0 using the default as in G*Power 3.0 effect size specification option. We determined that for an ANOVA with a within-between interaction, given  of .05, power of .90, two groups (i.e., young adults and older adults), two measurements (i.e., reaction times for direct gaze cued trials, reaction times for direct gaze miscued trials), the default repeated measures correlation of .50, and assuming the smaller of the previously uncovered partial eta-squared values of .18 for the interaction, a total sample size of 16 (8 participants per age group) would be required. Considering our plan to test for a higher-level interaction effect, as well as the potential for some data loss, we planned to recruit two times this amount for a sample size of 32 (16 participants per age group). Data Reduction and Preparation Plan We will remove any participant with less than 50% accuracy overall, assuming such participants did not engage properly with the experimental task (e.g., due to misunderstanding of instructions, boredom, fatigue, etc.). For the remaining participants, we will remove response times associated with incorrect responses. We will also remove RTs &lt; 100ms, as we assume that these represent responses that are not target driven (i.e., anticipation responses). Very slow responses will be characterised as those that are &gt; 3500ms and these will be removed as is conventional in this field given these responses are not likely to be related to the previously presented probes and therefore aren’t a measure of the construct of interest in the experiment. The remaining RTs will be log-transformed as is standard for RT data given it is typically positively skewed. Each participant’s mean log-transformed RT in direct-gaze-cued and direct-gaze-miscued trials for the nonpredictive and predictive cueing blocks will then be calculated and compiled for use in analyses. Analysis Plan The central research question will be addressed using a 2 (gaze-cueing condition: gaze-cued, gaze-miscued) x2 (ecological validity: high, low) x 2 (age-group: young adult, older adult) mixed ANOVA. For descriptive purposes, we will also compare young and older adults on the following demographic and background measures using t-tests and chi-square tests as appropriate. Demographic and Background Measures Ethnicity, Sex, and Age In addition to sex and age, data on ethnicity will be collected. Prior studies have shown that direct gaze perception may be subject to a small other-race effect in which Asian and Caucasian participants show relatively suboptimal perception of other-race direct gaze cues relative to own-race direct gaze cues (Collova et al., 2017). Uono and Hietanen (2015) also found higher accuracy in gaze detection for own-race persons for Caucasian observers; however, in their study no own-race effect of gaze perception was uncovered for Asian observers. Nonetheless, given the possibility of an other-race effect in eye gaze perception, racial demographics will be collected. To this end, we will ask participants: ‘What do you consider to be your ethnic origin or affiliation?’ With response options ‘Caucasian’, ‘Asian’, ‘Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander’, ‘African’, ‘Pacific Islander’ or ‘other (please specific below)’. To record sex, participants will be asked ‘what is your gender?’ The options they can select from are ‘Male’, ‘Female’, ‘Other’, or ‘Prefer not to say’. To record age, participants will be asked ‘How old did you turn in years on your last birthday (e.g., 32, 26, 65)?’. Edinburgh Handedness Inventory – Short Form Handedness is an important consideration in any task where participants are making speeded manual responses as in reaction time tasks. The four-item short form Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (Veale, 2014) is an adapted and simplified version of the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (Oldfield, 1971) developed using powerful confirmatory factor analysis techniques. It has good reliability ( = .93; Veale et al., 2014), and the four-item short form’s factor structure was found to be robust across adult age groups (see Veale, 2014). Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale – Self Report There is some evidence that social anxiety influences persons’ perceptions of eye gaze and responsiveness to gaze cues (Chen et al., 2017; although see Talipski et al., 2021). Here, we will assess social anxiety using the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale – Self-Report (LSAS-SR; Baker et al., 2002) to establish whether younger and older adults are matched in their social anxiety. This scale has been adapted from the original clinician administered version (Liebowitz, 1987), and measures fear and avoidance of 24 social situations via a Likert scale. It has been shown to have high internal consistency ( = .95; Baker et al., 2002). Autism Quotient Because Autism Spectrum Disorder and autistic traits have been linked to reduced performance in tasks requiring perception of and responsiveness to others’ direct gaze (e.g., see Madipakkam et al., 2019), we also aimed to quantify Autistic traits as a background characteristic. To this end, we will use the full Autism Quotient (AQ; see Baron-Cohen et al., 2001). The AQ comprises 50 questions. Participants rate their agreement (on a Likert scale) with 50 statements about themselves, each designed to tap into whether the individual has the Autistic trait or not across five symptom domains. Within each domain, the AQ has moderate to high internal consistency (s &gt; .63; Baron-Cohen et al., 2001). Intelligence, Education, and Cognition The National Adult Reading Test II (NART-II) will be administered to estimate full-scale IQ. Participants will also be asked to report their total years of full-time education (open response numerical with two examples supplied). The Mini-Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination (Mini-ACE) will be completed as a cognitive screening measure. The word-colour STROOP task will be used to index inhibitory control and Digit Span (Forwards and Backwards) to measure working memory. The Digit Span test is a subtest of both the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) and the Wechsler Memory Scales (WMS). Subjects are read a sequence of numbers and asked to repeat the same sequence back to the examiner in order (forward span) or in reverse order (backward span). Forward span captures attention efficiency and capacity. Backward span is an executive task particularly dependent on working memory. The Trail Making Task will be administered to index psychomotor speed (Part A), and executive control (Part B). Social Frailty Scale The Social Frailty Scale (Pek et al., 2020) is an 8-item scale that indexes social frailty. This is a validated measure that assesses access to both general and social resources, as well as the fulfilment of basic social needs. Visual Contrast Sensitivity We will compare younger and older adults in their visual contrast sensitivity using a Contrast Sensitivity Chart. References Baker, S. L., Heinrichs, N., Kim, H., &amp; Hofmann, S. G. (2002). The Liebowitz social anxiety scale as a self-report instrument: A preliminary psychometric analysis. 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