Neutral animals matter: Animacy modulates object-based attentional allocation

Abstract

Animacy plays an essential role in survival and adaptive behaviour. Previous studies have found that dangerous or threatening animals can capture and hold attention. However, it is unclear whether and how neutral animate objects guide attentional allocation. It is also uncertain whether the modulation of animate objects on attentional allocation is based on the object itself (object-based attention) or its location (space-based attention). Therefore, the present study adopted the well-established two-rectangle paradigm and used animate and inanimate objects as stimuli to test the abovementioned problems. The results revealed that object-based effects were obtained for both animate and inanimate objects. However, the object-based effects were larger when the cue appeared on the animate objects than on the inanimate objects, due to faster response to invalid same-object trials and slower response to invalid different-object trials. Beyond that, we also further confirmed that animacy itself, not the low-level visual complexity, led to the differential object-based effects. These results suggest that neutral animals also mattered to our attentional allocation and animacy can modulate object-based attentional selection by capturing and holding visual attention on the animate objects. Ultimately, the present study not only enriches our understanding of how neutral animate objects guide attentional allocation and support the attentional prioritisation theory, but also further extends and amends the animate-monitoring hypothesis.