The Visual Attentional Pattern Toward Smoking Area Signs in Legal and Illegal Cigarette Smokers: Preliminary Findings

This study aims to investigate the attentional pattern of the legal and illegal smokers toward the area signs (e.g. smoking area vs. no-smoking area) using a free viewing task and eye-tracking method. The participants were grouped into 25 legal smokers groups (LSG) and 15 illegal smokers groups (ISG) based on their usual smoking spots specified in the self-report questionnaire without any information about the legality of smoking. During the free-viewing task where their visual attentional pattern was measured by an eye-tracking method, the participants were presented with eight pictorial stimuli with the area signs and the smoking-related cues. The initial fixation latency and total dwell time were assessed for the smoking area signs. As a result, while LSG showed faster initial fixation toward the smoking area signs than no-smoking area signs, ISG did not. This finding suggests that the initial orienting attentional pattern of LSG toward the area signs might play a significant role in the legal smoking behavior.