Adult aging and social attention: why do older adults look less at eyes?

The tendency to follow another person’s gaze direction emerges very early in development. Surprisingly, older adults (aged 65+) are less likely than young adults to follow the gaze direction of other people. Also, eye-tracking studies indicate that older people generally look less at others’ eye region. However, little is understand about why older adults show these very different pattern of social attention compared to younger people. Are the age differences caused by cognitive changes? Perceptual changes? Motivational differences? Generational differences in social etiquette?

A PhD project to investigate this issue would use behavioural and eye-tracking techniques to look at how attention to social information is influenced by adult aging, and the possible mechanisms which underlie age differences. Faces are rich and complex visual stimuli, and picking out the eyes depends on perceptual sensitivity to the internal features of the face. If perceptual complexity is important, manipulations which alter the perceptual complexity of gaze tasks should influence age differences. Following gaze cues depends in part on working memory capacity, but we do not know whether age differences in social attention might be caused by cognitive decline. An alternative explanation for age differences in gaze cueing involves motivational changes with age. Socioemotional selectivity predicts that older adults focus attention on familiar social partners, as compared to younger people who are more motivated to engage with new people. This suggests that using photographs of familiar social partners should reduce or even reverse age effects on gaze following.
This PhD would involve working with the Aging, Cognition and Emotion Lab, and the Active Vision Lab to develop new tasks of social attention which use behavioural and eye-tracking measures to better understand social cognition in older adults.

Candidates must hold (or be expected to obtain) an Upper Second Class Honours degree in Psychology or cognate discipline as a minimum requirement. Additional research experience would be an advantage. Applications must be made through the University of Aberdeen applicant portal: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/apply.php. Applications must include: 1) An on-line form completed through the applicant portal. 2) A project proposal, maximum 1500 words (excluding references), describing the background, aims, and suggestions for 2-3 studies to address the aims. Applicants can liaise with the supervisor when developing their proposal. 3) Two academic references – please attach the references to the application or include full referee contact details. 4) A CV outlining your academic qualifications and research experience to date. If possible, it would be useful to add an academic transcript.