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<p>The contextual cueing effect demonstrates that visual search is faster when targets appear in repeated, rather than nonrepeated, spatial configurations—a phenomenon attributed to learned attentional guidance. This study investigated how attention, modulated by social salience of face stimuli, influences such implicit spatial learning. Using self-face and stranger-face images as search items, participants located a unique-identity target among distractors of another identity. The face identity condition was implemented using a&#xa0;between-subjects design in Experiment <InternalRef RefID="Sec2">1</InternalRef>&#xa0;and a&#xa0;within-subjects design in Experiment <InternalRef RefID="Sec6">2</InternalRef>. Results revealed a critical dissociation: Reliable contextual cueing emerged when participants searched for a self-face target among stranger-face distractors. Conversely, this learning effect was consistently attenuated or absent when self-faces served as distractors during searches for a stranger target. We propose that self-face distractors function as an “attentional magnet.” They not only capture attention effectively but also disrupt the global processing required to encode the spatial layout of a scene. This impairs the formation of stable context-target associations, without necessarily slowing overall search speed. Our findings underscore an asymmetric influence of self-relevance and highlight how social salience can selectively disrupt implicit spatial learning when salient stimuli are task irrelevant.</p>

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Contextual cueing and attention control: Self-face vs. stranger-face search

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年4月23日

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  • Shasha Zhu,
  • Hong-Jin Sun,
  • Kevin Guo,
  • Cheng Xiu,
  • Hongyu Yang,
  • Xuelian Zang

摘要

The contextual cueing effect demonstrates that visual search is faster when targets appear in repeated, rather than nonrepeated, spatial configurations—a phenomenon attributed to learned attentional guidance. This study investigated how attention, modulated by social salience of face stimuli, influences such implicit spatial learning. Using self-face and stranger-face images as search items, participants located a unique-identity target among distractors of another identity. The face identity condition was implemented using a between-subjects design in Experiment 1 and a within-subjects design in Experiment 2. Results revealed a critical dissociation: Reliable contextual cueing emerged when participants searched for a self-face target among stranger-face distractors. Conversely, this learning effect was consistently attenuated or absent when self-faces served as distractors during searches for a stranger target. We propose that self-face distractors function as an “attentional magnet.” They not only capture attention effectively but also disrupt the global processing required to encode the spatial layout of a scene. This impairs the formation of stable context-target associations, without necessarily slowing overall search speed. Our findings underscore an asymmetric influence of self-relevance and highlight how social salience can selectively disrupt implicit spatial learning when salient stimuli are task irrelevant.