Effect of distracting faces on visual selective attention in the monkey
Open accessAbstract
In primates, visual stimuli with social and emotional content tend to attract attention. Attention might be captured through rapid, automatic, subcortical processing or guided by slower, more voluntary cortical processing. Here we examined whether irrelevant faces with varied emotional expressions interfere with a covert attention task in macaque monkeys. In the task, the monkeys monitored a target grating in the periphery for a subtle color change while ignoring distracters that included faces appearing elsewhere on the screen. The onset time of distracter faces before the target change, as well as their spatial proximity to the target, was varied from trial to trial. The presence of faces, especially faces with emotional expressions interfered with the task, indicating a competition for attentional resources between the task and the face stimuli. However, this interference was significant only when faces were presented for greater than 200 ms. Emotional faces also affected saccade velocity and reduced pupillary reflex. Our results indicate that the attraction of attention by emotional faces in the monkey takes a considerable amount of processing time, possibly involving cortical-subcortical interactions. Intranasal application of the hormone oxytocin ameliorated the interfering effects of faces. Together these results provide evidence for slow modulation of attention by emotional distracters, which likely involves oxytocinergic brain circuits.
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Intranasal administration of 24 IU OT modulates social behavior in nonhuman primates.
“This dose, administered intranasally, has been shown in nonhuman primates to increase OT levels in cerebrospinal fluid significantly (54) and to modulate social behavior (65), as well as to affect brain activity (66) and phasic activity of the parasympathetic nervous system (67) in humans.”
From Oxytocin under opioid antagonism leads to supralinear enhancement of social attention (2017) · cites this paper as [65]
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“Finally, as mentioned in the previous section, work across humans and nonhuman primates indicates that the effects of OT are likely valencespecific (Chang et al., 2012; Ebitz et al., 2013; Evans et al., 2010; Landman et al., 2014; Marsh et al., 2010; Unkelbach et al., 2008).”
BackgroundInfluentialEffects of chronic oxytocin on attention to dynamic facial expressions in infant macaques
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- Authors
- Landman, R., Sharma, J., Sur, M., & Desimone, R.
- Affiliations
- McGovern Institute for Brain Research (US)
- Harvard University (US)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2014-12-03
- Volume
- 111
- Issue
- 50
- Pages
- 18037-18042
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC4273369
- OpenAlex
- W2024068621
- Cited by
- 43
- References
- 68
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 3 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 2.60
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Funders
- HHS | National Institutes of Health (NIH) (EY017292)
- Simons Foundation (SF) (none)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Keywords
- visual selective attention, emotional face processing, attentional capture, distractor interference, covert attention, macaque, saccade velocity, pupillary reflex, oxytocin, attentional modulation, social attention, spatial proximity
- MeSH terms
- Analysis of Variance, Animals, Attention, Emotions, Eye Movements, Face, Facial Expression, Macaca mulatta, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Photic Stimulation, Psychomotor Performance
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