General trust is correlated with attentional orientation triggered by gaze direction

Abstract

The present study examined how general trust — a general cognitive bias in belief — is related to voluntary and involuntary attentional orientation. The gaze-cueing effect, a phenomenon by which the visual system directs attention to the spatial location indicated by another's gaze, was used to measure these types of attentional orientation. In Experiment 1, we observed a positive correlation between general trust and the gaze-cueing effect with different cue-target SOAs; general trust was reflected in both voluntary and involuntary attentional orientation triggered by gaze direction. In Experiment 2, the cueing stimulus was not social, and a positive correlation was only observed for voluntary attentional orientation. These results suggest that general trust might be reflected in relatively early cognitive processes regardless of whether it is triggered voluntarily or involuntarily by another's gaze direction. Furthermore, general trust might be differentially related to attentional orientation based on whether or not it is triggered socially.