When asked to find a target dyad amongst non-interacting individuals,
participants respond faster when the individuals in the target dyad are
shown face-to-face, than when they are presented back-to-back. A growing
body of literature interprets this in terms of specialized social
interaction processing. However, human faces and bodies are salient
directional cues that exert a strong influence on how observers distribute
their attention. Here we report that a similar search advantage exists for
‘point-to-point’ and ‘point-to-face’ target arrangements constructed using
arrows – a non-social directional cue. These findings indicate that the
search advantage found for face-to-face dyads is a product of the
directional cues present within arrangements, not the fact that they are
processed as social interactions, per se. We then extend these findings to
a variety of other objects, showing that all objects that elicit
directional cueing also show effects in visual search similar to those
attributed to social interactions. While the study of social interaction
perception is an exciting new field, paradigms are still being refined. A
multitude of published studies have already employed the face-to-face vs.
back-to-back manipulation to isolate the neural, perceptual, and mnemonic
processes recruited by interacting individuals. Our results highlight the
influence of the directional cues present within these arrangements. It may
prove significant (and problematic) that this manipulation not only alters
the perception of social interaction, but also the way that participants
attend to these displays.