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Abstract:
Previous studies have highlighted the importance of eye gaze
in social behavior. Whereas direct gaze may draw attention to the
face and signal one-to-one communication with an observer, averted
gaze indicates the focus of another's attention and may draw one's
own attention in that direction. We tested whether perceived gaze
influences face recognition, and whether it affects the ability to
ignore a face during performance of an unrelated task. Sixteen
subjects performed one-back repetition detection of faces or
houses. Stimuli in both tasks consisted of a face overlaid
transparently onto a house. The face in each house-face pair gazed
at the subject, or to the left or right. In the face task, subjects
indicated if the person was the same as the one in the preceding
trial. In the house task, subjects indicated if the house was the
same as the one in the preceding trial. We found that perceived
gaze exerted opposite effects on face and house recognition.
Perception of direct gaze facilitated face recognition relative to
averted gaze (p < 0.05), but inhibited house recognition (p <
0.05). These results suggest that direct gaze preferentially
engages attention to the face even when attention is explicitly
drawn to another stimulus. The finding that perception of direct
gaze interfered with house recognition supports previous claims
that gaze direction may be processed at an automatic level.
Attentional Processes: other
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