The impact of eye gaze on social interactions of females in virtual reality: The mediating role of the uncanniness of avatars and the moderating role of task type.

The introduction of the Metaverse and the rise of social virtual reality platforms such as VRChat has led to increased communication and collaboration in virtual reality. As interactions in social virtual reality take place through avatars, the behaviour, and in particular the eye gaze of an avatar can have an impact on the user experience. However, it is still unclear which features of the user experience are most influenced. Therefore, this study used data from 44 female participants to investigate how avatar gaze behaviour (static eyes vs. real-time tracked eyes) affects their perceived quality of communication and the amount of one-sided eye contact participants make during a communicative or collaborative task in virtual reality. In addition, the study investigated the mediating role of perceived avatar "uncanniness" (i.e., the finding that humanoid objects that imperfectly resemble real people evoke feelings of discomfort) in this relationship and the moderation effect of two multi-user scenarios (collaboration vs. communication). The results showed that uncanniness directly affected the perceived quality of communication. However, it did not significantly mediate the relationship between avatar eye gaze behaviour and the quality of communication or the amount of one-sided eye contact. Finally, there were no significant differences in user experience between the two scenarios. From this, we can conclude that the uncanniness of an avatar being interacted with in VR is not enough to hinder communication and collaboration in an immersive medium. And even if an avatar is perceived as uncanny, normative communication cues such as eye contact are still present. Notably, due to sample availability, the results of this study are based on a female-only sample. Thus, future research can benefit from exploring the outlined effects in a more gender-balanced sample.

Evidence for a two-step model of social group influence.

Social group influence plays an important role in societally relevant phenomena such as rioting and mass panic. One way through which groups influence individuals is by directing their gaze. Evidence that gaze following increases with group size has typically been explained in terms of strategic processes. Here, we tested the role of reflexive processes. In an ecologically valid virtual reality task, we found that participants were more likely to follow the group's gaze when more people looked, even though they knew the group provided no relevant information. Interestingly, participants also sometimes changed their mind after starting to follow the gaze of the group, indicating that automatic imitation can be overruled by strategic processes. This suggests that social group influence is best explained by a two-step model in which bottom-up imitative processes first elicit a reflexive tendency to imitate, before top-down strategic processes determine whether to execute or inhibit this reflex.

Danger, high voltage! Using EEG and EOG measurements for cognitive overload detection in a simulated industrial context.

Industrial settings will be characterized by far-reaching production automation brought about by advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence. As a consequence, human assembly workers will need to adapt quickly to new and more complex assembly procedures, which are most likely to increase cognitive workload, or potentially induce overload. Measurement and optimization protocols need to be developed in order to be able to monitor workers' cognitive load. Previous studies have used electroencephalographic (EEG, measuring brain activity) and electrooculographic (EOG, measuring eye movements) signals, using basic computer-based static tasks and without creating an experience of overload. In this study, EEG and EOG data was collected of 46 participants performing an ecologically valid assembly task while inducing three levels of cognitive load (low, high and overload). The lower individual alpha frequency (IAF) was identified as a promising marker for discriminating between different levels of cognitive load and overload.

Staying Informed and Bridging "Social Distance": Smartphone News Use and Mobile Messaging Behaviors of Flemish Adults during the First Weeks of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The authors explore patterns of smartphone use during the first weeks following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in Belgium, focusing on citizens' use of smartphones to consume news and to communicate and interact with others. Unique smartphone tracking data from 2,778 Flemish adults reveal that at the height of the outbreak, people used their smartphone on average 45 minutes (28 percent) more than before the outbreak. The number of smartphone pickups remained fairly stable over this period. This means that on average, users did not turn to their smartphones more frequently but used them longer to access news (54 percent increase), social media apps (72 percent increase), messaging apps (64 percent increase), and the voice call feature (44 percent increase). These smartphone use patterns suggest that smartphones are key instruments that help citizens stay informed, in sync, and in touch with society during times of crisis.

Let it be? Pain control attempts critically amplify attention to somatosensory input.

Recent studies have suggested that the threat of pain may redirect attention towards specific features of the pain stimulus via attentional control settings. For instance, it has been shown that anticipating pain results in attentional prioritization of the location where pain is expected. In contemporary theories on attention and pain, it has been argued that pain control motivation-e.g., attempting to avoid pain-is capable of enhancing these effects. The present study investigated if the threat of pain prioritizes attention towards somatosensory input over other sensory information, and if pursuing a pain control goal augments this effect. In a Temporal Order Judgment experiment, 41 participants were presented with visuo-tactile stimulus pairs and asked to judge which stimulus they had perceived first. Half of all trials were associated with the threat of acute pain, while the other half was not. Furthermore, half of our sample was encouraged to avoid the administration of pain by means of a specified behavioral response, whereas the other half was not. In line with our hypotheses, we found the threat of pain to prioritize attention towards the somatosensory modality, i.e., participants tended to perceive the tactile stimulus as occurring earlier in time than the visual stimulus. Interestingly, in-depth analyses suggested that this effect was predominantly carried by participants who were engaged in pain control efforts. These findings support the idea that pain goals exert top-down attentional control prioritizing pain-relevant sensory information. Clinical relevance and future directions are discussed.

Attentional bias to pain-relevant body locations: New methods, new challenges.

In a recent issue of Consciousness and Cognition, Filbrich, Torta, Vanderclausen, Azanon, and Legrain (2016) commented on a paper in which we used a tactile Temporal Order Judgment (TOJ) task to show that expecting pain on a specific body location biased attention to that location (Vanden Bulcke, Crombez, Durnez, & Van Damme, 2015). Their main criticism is that the effects are likely to reflect response bias rather than genuine attentional bias. We agree that the TOJ task used may be susceptible to response bias, and welcome the authors' methodological suggestions to control for such bias. However, we feel that certain aspects of our work are misrepresented in their paper. Most importantly, we contest their argument that our instructions made the threat location task-relevant, thereby increasing risk of response bias. Further, we reply to other methodological and theoretical issues raised by these authors.

No Evidence for Threat-Induced Spatial Prioritization of Somatosensory Stimulation during Pain Control Using a Synchrony Judgment Paradigm.

Topical research efforts on attention to pain often take a critical look at the modulatory role of top-down factors. For instance, it has been shown that the fearful expectation of pain at a location of the body directs attention towards that body part. In addition, motivated attempts to control this pain were found to modulate this prioritization effect. Such studies have often used a temporal order judgment task, requiring participants to judge the order in which two stimuli are presented by indicating which one they perceived first. As this constitutes a forced-choice response format, such studies may be subject to response bias. The aim of the current study was to address this concern. We used a ternary synchrony judgment paradigm, in which participants judged the order in which two somatosensory stimuli occurred. Critically, participants now also had the option to give a 'simultaneous' response when they did not perceive a difference. This way we eliminated the need for guessing, and thus reduced the risk of response bias. One location was threatened with the possibility of pain in half of the trials, as predicted by an auditory cue. Additionally, half of the participants (pain control group) were encouraged to avoid pain stimuli by executing a quick button press. The other half (comparison group) performed a similar action, albeit unrelated to the occurrence of pain. Our data did not support threat-induced spatial prioritization, nor did we find evidence that pain control attempts influenced attention in any way.

Is attentional prioritization on a location where pain is expected modality-specific or multisensory?

Previous research suggests that anticipating pain at a particular body location prioritizes somatosensory input at that location. The present study tested whether this prioritization effect is limited to somatosensory information (modality-specific hypothesis) or generalizes to other sensory modalities (multisensory hypothesis). Thirty-four students performed tactile and visual Temporal Order Judgment (TOJ) tasks while either expecting a painful stimulus on one of the hands (threat), or expecting no pain stimulus (control). Participants judged the order of either two visual stimuli (visual condition) or two tactile stimuli (tactile condition), one on each hand. Analyses revealed that only in threat trials, participants became aware of stimuli on the threatened hand more quickly as compared to the neutral hand, replicating the prioritization effect. Of particular interest, this effect was not different between the tactile and visual conditions. This suggests that the anticipation of pain results in multisensory prioritization of information at the threatened body location.

Detection of tactile change on a bodily location where pain is expected.

As it is adaptive to accurately detect and localize bodily threats, it has been proposed that the brain prioritizes somatosensory input at body locations where pain is expected. To test this proposition, the detection of tactile changes on a body location was investigated to assess whether detection was facilitated by threat of pain. Healthy participants (N = 47) indicated whether two consecutive patterns of three tactile stimuli were the same or not. Stimuli could be administered at eight possible locations. In half of the trials, the same pattern was presented twice. In the other half, one stimulus location was different between the two displays. To induce bodily threat, a painful stimulus was occasionally administered to the non-dominant lower arm. Mean accuracy of tactile change detection as a function of location was analyzed using repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). Tactile changes on the threatened arm (i.e., when a tactile stimulus emerged at or disappeared from that arm), both at the exact pain location (lower arm) and at the other location (upper arm), were better detected than tactile changes on other limbs.

Trying to fix a painful problem: the impact of pain control attempts on the attentional prioritization of a threatened body location.

UNLABELLED: Motivational accounts of pain behavior and disability suggest that persisting attempts to avoid or control pain may paradoxically result in heightened attention to pain-related information. We investigated whether attempts to control pain prioritized attention to the location where pain was expected, using a tactile change detection paradigm. Thirty-seven undergraduate students had to detect changes between 2 consecutively presented patterns of tactile stimuli at various body locations. One of the locations was made threatening by occasionally administering a pain-eliciting stimulus. Half of the participants (pain control group) were encouraged to actively avoid the administering of pain by pressing a button as quickly as possible, whereas the other participants (comparison group) were not. The actual amount of painful stimuli was the same in both groups. Results showed that in the comparison group, the anticipation of pain resulted in better detection of tactile changes at the pain location than at the other locations, indicating an attentional bias for the threatened location. Crucially, the pain control group showed a similar attentional bias, but also when there was no actual presence of threat. This suggests that although threat briefly prioritized the threatened location, the goal to control pain did so in a broader, more context-driven manner. PERSPECTIVE: This study investigates the impact of attempts to control pain on somatosensory processing at the pain location. It provides further insight into the motivational mechanisms of pain-related attention. It also points to the negative consequences of trying to control uncontrollable pain, such as is often the case in chronic pain.

The anticipation of pain at a specific location of the body prioritizes tactile stimuli at that location.

This study investigated whether one becomes more quickly aware of innocuous somatosensory signals at locations of the body where pain is anticipated. Undergraduate students (N=20) indicated which of 2 stimuli that were administered to each hand using a range of stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs), was presented first. Participants were instructed that the color of a cue (1 of 2 colors) signaled the possible occurrence of pain on 1 hand (threat trials). The other color of the cue signaled that no pain would follow (control trials). Results showed that during threat trials tactile stimuli on the hand where pain was expected, were perceived earlier in time than stimuli on the "neutral" hand. These findings demonstrate that the anticipation of pain at a particular location of the body resulted in the prioritization in time of somatosensory sensations at that location, indicating biased attention towards the threatened body part. The value of this study for investigating hypervigilance for somatosensory signals in clinical populations such as patients with chronic lower back pain is discussed.

Attentional prioritisation of threatening information: examining the role of the size of the attentional window.

In line with most models of emotion, research has shown that threatening information receives attentional priority over neutral information. Recently, it has been suggested that the degree to which participants divide their attention across the visual field (the attentional window) may modulate the extent to which salient objects are attentionally prioritised. In the current study, participants were required to identify a target inside one of a variable number of coloured circles. One colour (Conditioned Stimulus, CS +) was fear-conditioned using an electrocutaneous stimulus at tolerance level. This search task was combined with a go/no-go task that required participants to either divide attention across the visual field to create a broad attentional window (global group), or focus their attention on the fixation point to create a narrow attentional window (local group). The results showed that only in the global group was the CS + colour prioritised over the neutral colours, indicating that a broader attentional window leads to enhanced attentional prioritisation of threat. Implications for research on attentional bias to threat are discussed.