A study examines how agriculture influences mortality due to poor air quality in the United States.
Image credit: Jason D. Hill.
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Edited by Dale Purves, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, and approved September 19, 2006 (received for review July 7, 2006)
Abstract
Human observers are constantly bombarded with a vast amount of information. Selective attention helps us to quickly process what is important while ignoring the irrelevant. In this study, we demonstrate that information that has not entered observers' consciousness, such as interocularly suppressed (invisible) erotic pictures, can direct the distribution of spatial attention. Furthermore, invisible erotic information can either attract or repel observers' spatial attention depending on their gender and sexual orientation. While unaware of the suppressed pictures, heterosexual males' attention was attracted to invisible female nudes, heterosexual females' attention was attracted to invisible male nudes, gay males behaved similarly to heterosexual females, and gay/bisexual females performed in-between heterosexual males and females.
Footnotes
- §To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: sheng{at}umn.edu
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Author contributions: Y.J., F.F., M.H., and S.H. designed research; Y.J. and P.C. performed research; Y.J. and S.H. analyzed data; and Y.J., P.C., and S.H. wrote the paper.
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The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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This article is a PNAS direct submission.
- Abbreviation:
- 2AFC,
- two-alternative forced choice.
- © 2006 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
A gender- and sexual orientation-dependent spatial attentional effect of invisible images
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