Self-construal priming modulates the breadth of the spatial attentional spotlight

Abstract

The influence of social factors on visual attention is an increasingly important area in experimental psychology. However, there has been a little investigation of how self-construal affects how spatial attention selects visual information. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the influence of self-construal on the breadth of attentional spotlight. The Eriksen flanker task was employed to ascertain whether the interference from task-irrelevant stimuli flanking a to-be-identified target is changed following self-construal manipulations. Furthermore, the interstimulus distances between flankers were varied in order to measure the extent to which the breadth of the attentional spotlight is modulated after the self-construal manipulations. Results suggest that changes in self-construal modulate the breadth of the attentional spotlight. Moreover, the findings cast new light on how attentional selection can be modulated by high-level, social factors.