Self-face Captures, Holds, and Biases Attention

The Self-reference Effect Can Modulate Language Syntactic Processing Even Without Explicit Awareness: An Electroencephalography Study

Although it is well established that self-related information can rapidly capture our attention and bias cognitive functioning, whether this self-bias can affect language processing remains largely unknown. In addition, there is an ongoing debate as to the functional independence of language processes, notably regarding the syntactic domain. Hence, this study investigated the influence of self-related content on syntactic speech processing. Participants listened to sentences that could contain morphosyntactic anomalies while the masked face identity (self, friend, or unknown faces) was presented for 16 msec preceding the critical word. The language-related ERP components (left anterior negativity [LAN] and P600) appeared for all identity conditions. However, the largest LAN effect followed by a reduced P600 effect was observed for self-faces, whereas a larger LAN with no reduction of the P600 was found for friend faces compared with unknown faces. These data suggest that both early and late syntactic processes can be modulated by self-related content. In addition, alpha power was more suppressed over the left inferior frontal gyrus only when self-faces appeared before the critical word. This may reflect higher semantic demands concomitant to early syntactic operations (around 150-550 msec). Our data also provide further evidence of self-specific response, as reflected by the N250 component. Collectively, our results suggest that identity-related information is rapidly decoded from facial stimuli and may impact core linguistic processes, supporting an interactive view of syntactic processing. This study provides evidence that the self-reference effect can be extended to syntactic processing.

Subjectively salient faces differ from emotional faces: ERP evidence

The self-face is processed differently than emotional faces. A question arises whether other highly familiar and subjectively significant non-self faces (e.g. partner's face) are also differentiated from emotional faces. The aim of this event-related potential (ERP) study was to investigate the neural correlates of personally-relevant faces (the self and a close-other's) as well as emotionally positive (happy) and neutral faces. Participants were tasked with the simple detection of faces. Amplitudes of N170 were more negative in the right than in the left hemisphere and were not modulated by type of face. A similar pattern of N2 and P3 results for the self-face and close-other's face was observed: they were associated with decreased N2 and increased P3 relative to happy and neutral faces. However, the self-face was preferentially processed also when compared to a close-other's face as revealed by lower N2 and higher P3 amplitudes. Nonparametric cluster-based permutation tests showed an analogous pattern of results: significant clusters for the self-face compared with all other faces (close-other's, happy, neutral) and for close-other's face compared to happy and neutral faces. In summary, the self-face prioritization was observed, as indicated by significant differences between one's own face and all other faces. Crucially, both types of personally-relevant faces differed from happy faces. These findings point to the pivotal role of subjective evaluation of the saliency factor.

How far can the self be extended? Automatic attention capture is triggered not only by the self-face

The preferential processing of self-related information is thought to be driven by its high level of familiarity. However, some behavioral studies have shown that people may exhibit a preference for initially unfamiliar stimuli that have been associated with themselves arbitrarily. One of the key questions that needs to be addressed concerns the role of early attention in the prioritization of newly acquired information associated with the self. Another question is whether both highly familiar as well as new information referring to a subjectively significant person (i.e. close-other) benefits from preferential attentional processing. We aimed to tackle both questions by investigating the neural mechanisms involved in processing extremely familiar stimuli, like one's own face or the face of a close-other, as well as stimuli (abstract shapes) that were newly linked to each person. We used a dot-probe paradigm that allowed us to investigate the early stages of attentional prioritization. Our analysis of the N2pc component unveiled that attention was automatically captured by the self-face, a shape associated with oneself, and the face of the close person. However, a shape associated with the close-other did not elicit the same attentional response, as the N2pc was absent. Thus, both the self-face and information referring to the extended self (self-assigned shape, close-other's face) benefit from preferential early and automatic attentional processing.

Posterior theta activity reveals an early signal of self-face recognition

Self-related visual information, especially one's own face and name, are processed in a specific, prioritized way. However, the spatio-temporal brain dynamics of self-prioritization have remained elusive. Moreover, it has been unclear whether this prioritization is an effect of enhancement and amplification, or rather a facilitating automatization of processing self-referential information. In this EEG study, 25 married women (who changed their surnames after marriage, so that their past and present surnames could be used as stimuli) performed a detection task with faces and names from five categories: self, self from the past, friend, famous, and unknown person. The aim was to determine the temporal and spatial characteristics of early electrophysiological markers of self-referential processing. We report results of event-related component (ERP) and time-frequency analyses. In the ERPs, the earliest self-relevance effect was displayed only 300 ms after stimulus onset in the midfrontal N2, and later in the parietal P3b, independently of the stimulus type. No self-relevance effect was found on the N170 component. However, local theta power at the occipito-temporal (visual) areas and inter-regional theta phase coherence between the visual and midfrontal areas showed that self-relevance differentiation of faces began already about 100-300 ms after stimulus onset. No such early effects were found for names. The results are discussed in terms of the time-course, functional localization, stimulus-specificity, and automatization of self-prioritization.

The self and a close-other: differences between processing of faces and newly acquired information

Prioritization of self-related information (e.g. self-face) may be driven by its extreme familiarity. Nevertheless, the findings of numerous behavioral studies reported a self-preference for initially unfamiliar information, arbitrarily associated with the self. In the current study, we investigated the neural underpinnings of extremely familiar stimuli (self-face, close-other's face) and stimuli newly assigned to one's own person and to a close-other (abstract shapes). Control conditions consisted of unknown faces and unknown abstract shapes. Reaction times (RTs) to the self-face were shorter than to close-other's and unknown faces, whereas no RTs differences were observed for shapes. P3 amplitude to the self-face was larger than to close-other's and unknown faces. Nonparametric cluster-based permutation tests showed significant clusters for the self-face vs. other (close-other's, unknown) faces. However, in the case of shapes P3 amplitudes to the self-assigned shape and to the shape assigned to a close-other were similar, and both were larger than P3 to unknown shapes. No cluster was detected for the self-assigned shape when compared with the shape assigned to the close-other. Thus, our findings revealed preferential attentional processing of the self-face and the similar allocation of attentional resources to shapes assigned to the self and a close-other.

Electrophysiological correlates of self-prioritization

Personally relevant stimuli exert a powerful influence on social cognition. What is not yet fully understood, however, is how early in the processing stream self-relevance influences decisional operations. Here we used a shape-label matching task in conjunction with electroencephalography and computational modeling to explore this issue. A theoretically important pattern of results was observed. First, a standard self-prioritization effect emerged indicating that responses to self-related items were faster and more accurate than responses to other-related stimuli. Second, a hierarchical drift diffusion model analysis revealed that this effect was underpinned by the enhanced uptake of evidence from self-related stimuli. Third, self-other discrimination during matching trials was observed at both early posterior N1 and late centro-parietal P3 components. Fourth, whereas the N1 was associated with the rate of information accumulation during decisional processing, P3 activity was linked with the evidential requirements of response selection. These findings elucidate the electrophysiological correlates of self-prioritization.

EXPRESS: Self-Relevance and the Activation of Attentional Networks

Recent theoretical accounts maintain that core components of attentional functioning are preferentially tuned to self-relevant information. Evidence in support of this viewpoint is equivocal, however, with research overly reliant on personally significant (i.e., familiar) stimulus inputs (e.g., faces, forenames) and a diverse range of methodologies. Addressing these limitations, here we utilized arbitrary items (i.e., geometric shapes) and administered the Attention Network Test (ANT) to establish the extent to which self-relevance (vs. friend-relevance) moderates the three subsystems of attentional functioning - alerting, orienting, and executive control. The results revealed that only executive control was sensitive to the meaning of the stimuli, such that conflict resolution was enhanced following the presentation of self-associated compared to friend-associated shapes (i.e., cues). Probing the origin of this effect, a further computational analysis (i.e., Shrinking Spotlight Diffusion Model analysis) indicated that self-relevance facilitated the narrowing of visual attention. These findings highlight when and how the personal significance of otherwise trivial material modulates attentional processing.

Are covered faces eye-catching for us? The impact of masks on attentional processing of self and other faces during the COVID-19 pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been confronted with faces covered by surgical-like masks. This raises a question about how our brains process this kind of visual information. Thus, the aims of the current study were twofold: (1) to investigate the role of attention in the processing of different types of faces with masks, and (2) to test whether such partial information about faces is treated similarly to fully visible faces. Participants were tasked with the simple detection of self-, close-other's, and unknown faces with and without a mask; this task relies on attentional processes. Event-related potential (ERP) findings revealed a similar impact of surgical-like masks for all faces: the amplitudes of early (P100) and late (P300, LPP) attention-related components were higher for faces with masks than for fully visible faces. Amplitudes of N170 were similar for covered and fully visible faces, and sources of brain activity were located in the fusiform gyri in both cases. Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) revealed that irrespective of whether the algorithm was trained to discriminate three types of faces either with or without masks, it was able to effectively discriminate faces that were not presented in the training phase.

Unconscious social relation threats: Invisible boss face biases attention

Threatening stimuli as a kind of salient information often guide attentional orienting. Besides physically threatening stimuli, social threats can also strongly bias attention, even in the absence of conscious awareness. However, the available evidence mainly came from studies on an emotional face. It is unclear whether social relation threats, such as a boss face without emotional expressions, can also direct attentional orienting unconsciously. This study aimed to reveal the extent to which the attentional system has developed to process threatening stimuli by exploring whether invisible social relation threats unconsciously biased attention. We asked graduate and undergraduate students to perform a modified Posner's cue-target task, in which the probe was preceded by a pair of competitive face cues (an advisor's face and another faculty member's face), rendered invisible through continuous flash suppression. Experiment 1a's results showed that the advisor's face reflexively oriented graduate students' spatial attention, which was significantly correlated with subjective social threat evaluation. However, Experiment 1b showed that an invisible advisor's face did not induce the same effect in undergraduate students, as they reported significantly fewer threats from their advisors than graduates. To ensure the robustness of this new effect, we preregistered a replicate study and successfully replicated the above results in Experiments 2a and 2b. Our findings provide evidence for the existence of an attentional orienting bias toward invisible social relation threats. These results suggest that the attentional system evolved to promote the exploration of our visual environment for threatening social relation signals.

Impaired attentional bias toward one's own face in autism spectrum disorder: ERP evidence

Converging lines of evidence seem to indicate reduced self-referential processing in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, processing of one's own face has rarely been investigated in the context of ASD. Thus, the aim of the present study was to elucidate the role of attentional biases in the processing of self- and other faces in ASD. To achieve this goal we presented participants with images of their own face, the face of a close-other, and famous and unknown faces in a Stroop-like paradigm. Participants (22 with ASD, 22 typically developing [TD]) were instructed to indicate the color of presented faces while EEG was recorded. Our event-related potential results clearly showed that self-face was associated with larger P3 amplitudes than all other faces in the TD group, thus indicating a strong attentional bias toward one's own face. In the ASD group, P3 to the self-face and the close-other's face did not differ, suggesting similar attentional biases in both cases. In line with these P3 findings, nonparametric cluster-based permutation tests showed an analogous pattern of results: significant clusters for the self-face compared with all other faces in the TD group, and no significant cluster in the ASD group. Overall, our findings revealed impaired attentional bias to one's own face and diminished self versus other differentiation in individuals with ASD. The similar neural underpinnings of the self-face and other faces supports previous findings indicating reduced self-prioritization among individuals with ASD.

Mother-infant convergence of event-related potentials elicited by face and object processing

Prior work has provided conceptual support for developmental changes in face and object processing, such that: face processing, as captured by the N290 event-related potential (ERP) component in infancy, may develop into the N170 in adulthood; and motivated attention, as captured by the negative central (Nc) in infancy, may develop into the late positive potential (LPP). The present study examined these neural correlates in 12-month-old infants and their mothers (N = 33 dyads). Dyads completed a viewing task consisting of familiar and novel face and toy stimuli while electroencephalography was recorded. Results suggest that for mothers, the N170 was larger for faces than toys, regardless of familiarity, and the LPP was largest for familiar faces. In infants, the N290 was somewhat larger for faces than toys (p < .10); the Nc did not vary by condition. Adult ERPs demonstrated fair to good reliability; reliability of infant ERPs was lower and was influenced by looking behaviors. Intergenerational associations were strongest between the LPP and Nc, particularly when electrode and time window were taken into account. Refinement of data handling and ERP scoring procedures for infant ERPs are crucial next steps for estimation of intergenerational associations and further examination of developmental changes in face and object processing.

Self-prioritization depends on assumed task-relevance of self-association

We conducted three experiments to test the effect of assumed task-relevance of self-association on the self-prioritization effect (SPE). Participants were first performing the standard matching task, and then a pseudo-word matching task, in which familiar labels from the standard task were replaced with pseudo-words. In the pseudo-words task, the association between stimuli and the self was, in fact, task-irrelevant. Learning instructions were varied to make participants believe that the self-association was task-relevant (Experiments 1 and 3) or task-irrelevant (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, we told participants that geometrical shapes represent specific identities (self, friend, none) and pseudo-words' meanings reflect each of these identities to make participants believe that semantic associations of pseudo-words were task-relevant. In this experiment, a SPE was present in the pseudo-words task. Experiment 2 was identical to Experiment 1, but participants were told to form association pairs between pseudo-words and shapes, and not pseudo-words and identities. Thus, because the matching task presented only shapes and pseudo-words, participants were led to correctly believe that associations were task-irrelevant. Under these conditions, we did not observe a SPE in the pseudo-words task. Finally, in Experiment 3, participants were told that pseudo-words are "paired with" identities, making their relations with identities weaker than in Experiment 1, but still task-relevant. The SPE in the pseudo-word task reappeared. Together, the results suggest that a SPE can be observed in the absence of any stimuli with established self-associations, but only if self-associations are represented as task-relevant.

A pre-existing self-referential anchor is not necessary for self-prioritisation

Self-prioritisation effect (SPE) has consistently occurred in perceptual matching tasks in which neutral stimuli are paired with familiar labels representing different identities (e.g., triangle-Self, square-Friend). Participants are faster and more accurate at judging self-related shape-label pairings than the pairings associated with others. Much evidence has suggested that the SPE is driven by the self acting as an integrative hub that enhances stimulus processing (e.g., triangle). However, there is a growing debate as to whether the SPE is genuine or determined by the labels (e.g., 'me', 'you') being pre-existing self-referential anchor points. We investigated this in an adapted perceptual matching task in which participants were instructed to associate arbitrary stimulus pairs (visual features: shape and colour) with different people and then immediately carried out a colour-shape matching task. The results showed the standard pattern of the SPE in this perceptual matching task without familiar labels, indicating that the effect is not critically dependent on familiar labels. Further analysis revealed that the SPE emerged only when the complete shape-colour pairing was presented rather than individual elements (self-shape or self-colour). The theoretical implications of these findings are considered.

The impact of newly self-associated pictorial and letter-based stimuli in attention holding

Familiar self-associated stimuli such as one's own name and face are more efficient in guiding attention than other-associated stimuli. Remarkably, a short association of geometric shapes to the self versus others is sufficient to induce prioritization of the self- (vs. other-) associated shape in a matching task. Replications with other tasks measuring different stages of information processing, however, produced mixed results. It thus remains unclear whether the effect can be attributed to the newly associated stimulus alone. Therefore, in Study 1 (N = 28), we implemented the matching task and additionally compared the effectiveness of familiar versus newly self-associated stimuli with that of stranger-related stimuli to hold attention as cues in a dot-probe task. The self and the stranger were either represented by familiar labels ("I" vs. "stranger"), newly associated shapes, or shape-label pairs. In Study 2 (N = 31), participants associated nonwords to themselves and a stranger to compare the attentional impact of familiar and new self-associated letter combinations. Thus, we addressed the potential limitation due to modality present in former studies-which used mostly pictorial stimuli as new representations and letter combinations as familiar representations. Across both studies, in the dot-probe task, responses were faster towards targets following the self-associated stimuli compared with stranger-associated stimuli but only when familiar representations were used. Responses in the matching task were faster when confirming the correct self-associated pair. The results suggest that, under conditions of attentional competition, the prioritization of self-associated compared with other-associated cues does not generalize to newly associated stimuli.

Self-face and emotional faces-are they alike?

The image of one’s own face is a particularly distinctive feature of the self. The self-face differs from other faces not only in respect of its familiarity but also in respect of its subjective emotional significance and saliency. The current study aimed at elucidating similarities/dissimilarities between processing of one’s own face and emotional faces: happy faces (based on the self-positive bias) and fearful faces (because of their high perceptual saliency, a feature shared with self-face). Electroencephalogram data were collected in the group of 30 participants who performed a simple detection task. Event-related potential analyses indicated significantly increased P3 and late positive potential amplitudes to the self-face in comparison to all other faces: fearful, happy and neutral. Permutation tests confirmed the differences between the self-face and all three types of other faces for numerous electrode sites and in broad time windows. Representational similarity analysis, in turn, revealed distinct processing of the self-face and did not provide any evidence in favour of similarities between the self-face and emotional (either negative or positive) faces. These findings strongly suggest that the self-face processing do not resemble those of emotional faces, thus implying that prioritized self-referential processing is driven by the subjective relevance of one’s own face.

Early Capture of Attention by Self-Face: Investigation Using a Temporal Order Judgment Task

Earlier work on self-face processing has reported a bias in the processing of self-face result in faster response to self-face in comparison to other familiar and unfamiliar faces (termed as self-face advantage or SFA). Even though most studies agree that the SFA occurs due to an attentional bias, there is little agreement regarding the stage at which it occurs. While a large number of studies show self-face influencing processing later at disengagement stage, early event-related potential components show differential activity for the self-face suggesting that SFA occurs early. We address this contradiction using a cueless temporal order judgment task that allows us to investigate early perceptual processing, while bias due to top-down expectation is controlled. A greater shift in point of subjective simultaneity for self-face would indicate a greater processing advantage at early perceptual stage. With help of two experiments, we show an early perceptual advantage for self-face, compared to both a friend's face and an unfamiliar face (Experiment 1). This advantage is present even when the effect of criterion shift is minimized (Experiment 2). Interestingly, the magnitude of advantage is similar for self-friend and self-unfamiliar pair. The evidence from the two experiments suggests early capture of attention as a likely reason for the SFA, which is present for the self-face but not for other familiar faces.

Development of evaluative and incidental self-reference effects in childhood

The self-reference effect (SRE) is the memory enhancement associated with information linked to self. Unlike 4- to 6-year-olds, adults show stronger memory enhancement when self-processing is "evaluative" (eSRE) than when self-processing is "incidental" (iSRE). Here, the developmental change from shallow to rich self-processing was programmatically explored. In Study 1, 6- to 11-year-olds (N = 189) showed an eSRE = iSRE pattern. However, eSRE magnitude was limited by ceiling effects. Avoiding ceiling effects, Study 2 showed a developmentally stable eSRE > iSRE pattern in 8- to 11-year-olds (N = 96; η_p² = .06). Study 3 used a different paradigm to confirm that 8- to 11-year-olds are capable of evaluative encoding even without concrete self stimuli. However, the evaluative boost for children was smaller than that for adults (N = 104; η_p² = .06). Results are discussed with reference to the developing self and its capacity to support memory.

My own face looks larger than yours: A self-induced illusory size perception

Size perception of visual objects is highly context dependent. Here we report a novel perceptual size illusion that the self-face, being a unique and distinctive self-referential stimulus, can enlarge its perceived size. By using a size discrimination paradigm, we found that the self-face was perceived as significantly larger than the other-face of the same size. This size overestimation effect was not due to the familiarity of the self-face, since it could be still observed when the self-face was directly compared with a famous face. More crucially, such illusion effect could be extended to a new cartoon face that was transiently associated with one's own face and could also exert further contextual influences on visual size perception of other objects. These findings together highlight the role of self-awareness in visual size perception and point to a special mechanism of size perception tuned to self-referential information.

Does Self-Associating a Geometric Shape Immediately Cause Attentional Prioritization?

In many cognitive tasks, stimuli associated with one's self elicit faster responses than stimuli associated with others. This is true for familiar self-representations (e.g., one's own name), for new self-associated stimuli, and for combinations of both. The current research disentangles the potential of self- versus stranger-representations for familiar, new, and paired (familiar + new) stimuli to guide attention. In Study 1 (N = 34), responses to familiar and new self- versus other representations were tested in a dot-probe task with a short stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA; 100 ms). Study 2 (N = 31) and Study 3 (N = 35) use a long SOA (1,000 ms) to test whether the findings are mirrored in inhibition of return (IOR). We observe significant performance differences for targets following self- versus stranger-associated stimuli (i.e., a cuing effect or IOR depending on the SOA length), yet only when familiar representations are present. This indicates that, under conditions of attentional competition between self- and stranger-representations, familiar self-representations impact the distribution of attention while new self-representations alone do not.

The self-face captures attention without consciousness: Evidence from the N2pc ERP component analysis

It is well established that stimuli representing or associated with ourselves, like our own name or an image of our own face, benefit from preferential processing. However, two key questions concerning the self-prioritization mechanism remain to be addressed. First, does it operate in an automatic manner during the early processing, or rather in a more controlled fashion at later processing stages? Second, is it specific to the self-related stimuli, or can it be activated also by other stimuli that are familiar or salient? We conducted a dot-probe experiment to investigate the mechanism behind the attentional prioritization of the self-face image and to tackle both questions. The former, by employing a backwards masking procedure to isolate the early and preconscious processing stages. The latter, by investigating whether a face that becomes visually familiar due to repeated presentations is able to capture attention in a similar manner as the self-face. Analysis of the N2pc ERP component revealed that the self-face image automatically captures attention, both when processed consciously and unconsciously. In contrast, the visually familiar face did not attract attention, neither in the conscious, nor in the unconscious condition. We conclude that the self-prioritization mechanism is early and automatic, and is not triggered by mere visual familiarity. More generally, our results provide further evidence for efficient unconscious processing of faces, and for dissociation between attention and consciousness.

Stranger to my face: Top-down and bottom-up effects underlying prioritization of images of one's face

Recent studies suggest that we rapidly and effortlessly associate neutral information with the self, leading to subsequent prioritization of this information in perception. However, the exact underlying processes behind these effects are not fully known. Here, we focus specifically on top-down and bottom-up processes involved in self-prioritization, and report results from three experiments involving face detection, using a sequential match-non-match task. Across the three experiments we asked participants to associate an unfamiliar face with the self (Experiment 1), to associate one's face with a stranger's name (Experiment 2), and to establish both associations simultaneously (Experiment 3). We found that while participants showed evidence of bottom-up prioritization of their real faces, they did not show such an effect for self-associated strangers' faces. However, the participants showed a robust self-related top-down effect; when presented with a self-related cue, they were later faster at classifying both subsequent correct and incorrect targets. Together, our results suggest that self-prioritization is underpinned by distinct top-down and bottom-up processes. We discuss our findings in the context of the proposal that the self acts as an "integrative glue", and suggest an interpretation of our results within the framework of predictive coding.

The 'Narcissus Effect': Top-down alpha-beta band modulation of face-related brain areas during self-face processing

Self-related information, such as one's own face, is prioritized by our cognitive system. Whilst recent theoretical developments suggest that this is achieved by an interplay between bottom-up and top-down attentional mechanisms, their underlying neural dynamics are still poorly understood. Furthermore, it is still matter of discussion as to whether these attentional mechanisms are truly self-specific or instead driven by face familiarity. To address these questions, we used EEG to record the brain activity of twenty-five healthy participants whilst identifying their own face, a friend's face and a stranger's face. Time-frequency analysis revealed a greater sustained power decrease in the alpha and beta frequency bands for the self-face, which emerged at late latencies and was maintained even when the face was no longer present. Critically, source analysis showed that this activity was generated in key brain regions for self-face recognition, such as the fusiform gyrus. As in the Myth of Narcissus, our results indicate that one's own face might have the potential to hijack attention. We suggest that this effect is specific to the self and driven by a top-down attentional control mechanism, which might facilitate further processing of personally relevant events.

Automatic Attention Capture by Threatening, But Not by Semantically Incongruent Natural Scene Images

Visual objects are typically perceived as parts of an entire visual scene, and the scene’s context provides information crucial in the object recognition process. Fundamental insights into the mechanisms of context-object integration have come from research on semantically incongruent objects, which are defined as objects with a very low probability of occurring in a given context. However, the role of attention in processing of the context-object mismatch remains unclear, with some studies providing evidence in favor, but other against an automatic capture of attention by incongruent objects. Therefore, in the present study, 25 subjects completed a dot-probe task, in which pairs of scenes—congruent and incongruent or neutral and threatening—were presented as task-irrelevant distractors. Importantly, threatening scenes are known to robustly capture attention and thus were included in the present study to provide a context for interpretation of results regarding incongruent scenes. Using N2 posterior-contralateral ERP component as a primary measure, we revealed that threatening images indeed capture attention automatically and rapidly, but semantically incongruent scenes do not benefit from an automatic attentional selection. Thus, our results suggest that identification of the context-object mismatch is not preattentive.

Low Salivary Testosterone Level Is Associated With Efficient Attention Holding by Self Face in Women

Capacity to recognize one’s own face (hereinafter referred to as self face) is a fundamental component of various domains of social cognition such as empathy in humans. Previous research has demonstrated that a high level of androgen suppresses empathic behavior and social brain function. Taking these into consideration, we hypothesized that people with high androgen level show reduced response to self face. The present study examined this hypothesis by investigating the association between attentiveness towards self face, as assessed by a psychophysiological experiment, and salivary testosterone concentration. The attentional responses to self face was measured by a modified Go/NoGo task. In this task, self face or unfamiliar other’s face was presented simultaneously with Go or NoGo signal. In go trials, participants had to divert their attention from the face to a peripheral target. The reaction time (RT) for peripheral target detection in each condition was measured. In addition to behavioral data, saliva samples were collected to assay salivary testosterone concentration. The index of potency of self face to hold viewer’s attention that was computed based on RT data was regressed against salivary testosterone concentration in men and women separately. The analyses revealed that self face holds visuospatial attention more effectively in women with low than high salivary testosterone level, but no such trend was observed in men. This pattern of results indicates that low testosterone level is associated with a pronounced response to self face as we hypothesized and raises the possibility that multiple aspects of self-face processing are under the influence of endocrinological function.

Self-prioritization and the attentional systems

Humans prioritize stimuli related to themselves rather than to other people. How we control these priorities is poorly understood, though it is relevant to the nature of self-processing and a wide range of neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders, from cases of strokes, dementia to depression and schizophrenia. We update the Self-Attention Network proposed in 2016 by evaluating how self-prioritization interacts with Peterson and Posner's three attentional systems: alerting, orienting and executive control, based on evidence on a variety of behavioral and neuroscientific studies with healthy participants and patients with brain lesions. We suggest that all the three attentional networks contribute to self-prioritization. Understanding the nature of self-prioritization in attentional contexts may provide important clinical implications for a variety of disorders related to self-processing.

Unconscious Detection of One's Own Image

A key mechanism behind preferential processing of self-related information might be an early and automatic capture of attention. Therefore, the present study tested a hypothesis that one's own face will attract bottom-up attention even without conscious identification. To test this, we used a dot-probe paradigm with electrophysiological recordings, in which participants ( N = 18) viewed masked and unmasked pairs of faces (other, self) presented laterally. Analysis of the sensitivity measure d ' indicated that faces were not consciously identified in the masked condition. A clear N2 posterior-contralateral (N2pc) component (a neural marker of attention shifts) was found in both the masked and unmasked conditions, revealing that one's own face automatically captures attention when processed unconsciously. Therefore, our study (a) demonstrates that self-related information is boosted at an early (preconscious) stage of processing, (b) identifies further features (beyond simple physical ones) that cause automatic attention capture, and (c) provides further evidence for the dissociative nature of attention and consciousness.