A short-lived face alert during inhibition of return

Abstract

In the present study, we explored the role of faces in oculomotor inhibition of return (IOR) using a tightly controlled spatial cuing paradigm. We measured saccadic response latency to targets following peripheral cues that were either faces or objects of lesser sociobiological salience. A recurring influence from cue content was observed across numerous methodological variations. Faces versus other object cues briefly reduced saccade latencies toward subsequently presented targets, independently of attentional allocation and IOR. The results suggest a short-lived priming effect or social facilitation effect from the mere presence of a face. In the present study, we further showed that saccadic responses were unaffected by face versus nonface objects in double-cue presentations. Our findings indicate that peripheral face cues do not influence attentional orienting processes involved in IOR any differently from other objects in a tightly controlled oculomotor IOR paradigm.