Images of a Familiar Face Do not Capture Attention under Conditions of Inattention

Personally and emotionally meaningful information (e.g., one's own name) has shown to capture attention. The question we studied was whether an image of a familiar face draws attention even though it is not expected, and it appears when the focus of attention is directed to other stimuli. Observers' task was to compare two faces and report whether they were identical or left-right reversed. In addition to these faces, a matrix of ‘background’ faces was displayed. On noncritical trials, the matrix consisted of unfamiliar faces. On critical trials (in about every eighth trial) either an observer's own face or President Ahtisaari's face was displayed. Reaction time was nearly identical on the critical and uncritical trials. On the recognition test about half of the observers were certain that they had seen their own faces in the first part of the experiment. When explicitly asked, however, only three of 26 observers reported that they had recognized their own faces during the comparison task.