Treinen, Evelyne
[UCL]
Bry, Clémentine
[Université de Savoie]
Corneille, Olivier
[UCL]
Yzerbyt, Vincent
[UCL]
Several recent studies showed that objects that are being looked at by others are rated more favourably than objects that are being looked away from (e.g. Bayliss, Paul, Cannon, & Tipper, 2006; Corneille, Mauduit, Holland, & Strick, 2009). But do we also automatically like stimuli when we perceive they are being looked at? In this study, we addressed this question by examining one of the dimensions of automaticity, namely gazing awareness. We hypothesized that the effect of joint attention on liking only occurs when people are aware that the observed person directed his/her attention towards the stimulus. Our sample consisted of 63 female psychology students (mean age = 19.6). In this study, 6 pre-tested art paintings were used as neutral stimuli and associated with movie excerpts of 4 female faces (counterbalanced between participants) on a computer screen. Two paintings were always looked at, 2 always looked away from and 2 were associated with neutral attention (closed eyes). These associations were fully counterbalanced between participants. After exposition, participants completed a preference comparison task with the 15 possible pairs of the 6 paintings. We computed the total number of times one painting was chosen over another out of the 10 times it was presented. Finally, participants indicated whether the painting was systematically associated with a gaze toward, gaze away from, with closed eyes, with no systematic gaze or whether they did not remember. Results revealed that participants preferred looked-at-paintings (M=6.88, SD=2.90) over all others (M=4.75, SD=3.08) only when they correctly recalled they were looked at, t(364)=4.23, p < .001. Responses on the memory test seem to be genuinely driven by memory and not by inferences from liking, supporting our hypothesis that joint attention effect on liking is dependent on gazing awareness. Implications for associative evaluative learning processes are discussed.
| Bibliographic reference |
Treinen, Evelyne ; Bry, Clémentine ; Corneille, Olivier ; Yzerbyt, Vincent. Eye’m lovin’ it! The role of gazing awareness in evaluative effects of joint attention.12th European Social Cognition Network Transfer of Knowledge Conference (Gothenburg, Sweden, du 25/08/2010 au 29/08/2010). |
| Permanent URL |
http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/105577 |
