Abstract
We examined the effects of task instructions on looks toward people and non-social elements in an image with higher and lower physical salience. We used the ‘do not look’ (DL) paradigm (Laidlaw, Risko & Kingstone, 2011) under three different instructions: DL at the person, DL at a non-social area and free-viewing. We also examined whether the performance of the task was related to individual differences in ADHD and mind-wandering symptoms. We tested the hypothesis that If looking at the person is a consequence of an automatic response then performance in the DL: social condition should be worse (i.e., more errors should be made) than performance in the DL: non-social condition. If both types of object are prioritised equally, then performance in the DL: social condition should be comparable to that in the DL: non-social condition. Our results showed that it was more difficult to avoid looking to the social areas compared to the non-social areas. Individual differences were related to more frequent fixations to the non-social object in the free-viewing condition. Such findings suggest that the early bias to look at socially-relevant items is automatic and hard to avoid.