Attention, Researchers! It Is Time to Take a Look at the Real World

TLDR

Attention theories derived from laboratory experiments may lack validity because they ignore that people routinely use others' eyes as rich attentional cues. The authors argue that attention research should be grounded in real‑world contexts rather than experimental paradigms, urging cognitive psychology to study attention with real‑life relevance. The study shows that both eyes and arrows can trigger reflexive attention shifts even when centrally presented and nonpredictive, challenging prevailing assumptions in attention research.

Abstract

Theories of attention, too often generated from artificial laboratory experiments, may have limited validity when attention in the natural world is considered. For instance, for more than two decades, conceptualizations of “reflexive” and “volitional” shifts of spatial attention have been grounded in methodologies that do not recognize or utilize the basic fact that people routinely use the eyes of other people as rich and complex attentional cues. This fact was confirmed by our novel discovery that eyes will trigger a reflexive shift of attention even when they are presented centrally and are known to be spatially nonpredictive. This exploration of real-world attention also led to our finding that, contrary to popular wisdom, arrows, like eyes, are capable of producing reflexive shifts of attention—a discovery that brings into question much of the existing attention research. We argue that research needs to be grounded in the real world and not in experimental paradigms. It is time for cognitive psychology to reaffirm the difficult task of studying attention in a manner that has relevance to real-life situations.