Abstract
Individuals differ in the extent to which they attend to their physical and social environments, but little empirical work has measured these differences at a cognitive level. To address this gap, two studies explored the association between attentional processes and Person and Thing Orientations. The first study measured visual selective attention toward person- and thing-related image components. In the second study, participants provided written responses about a set of images; linguistic analyses were conducted to assess attentional bias toward interest-congruent content. The results from both studies support motivated attention as a process through which interests in physical and social environments operate. Implications for both the theory and applications of Person and Thing Orientations are discussed.
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Psychological Sciences
Committee Chair
William G. Graziano
Date of Award
Spring 2015
Recommended Citation
McIntyre, Miranda May, "Seeing people, seeing things: Individual differences in selective attention" (2015). Open Access Theses. 579.
https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/open_access_theses/579
First Advisor
William G. Graziano
Committee Member 1
Kipling D. Williams
Committee Member 2
James Tyler
Included in
Cognitive Psychology Commons, Personality and Social Contexts Commons, Social Psychology Commons