Neurophysiological correlates of gaze processing

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Neurophysiological correlates of gaze processing Grace Wei1*, Jacqueline A. Rushby1, Christopher Sufani1 and Frances De Blasio1 1 University of New South Wales, Australia Aims: Eye gaze information plays a fundamental role in facilitating interaction with both our physical and social environment. The ability to use eye gaze as an attentional cue is proposed to be critical for both cognitive and social development in early life. In the behavioural literature, a robust attentional orienting response (i.e. gaze cueing effect) has been reliably shown to be faster to congruent relative to incongruent cues, even when the gaze cue is entirely non-predictive of the target location. This automaticity of the perception and orienting triggered by uninformative gaze cues evidences advantages in neural processing in response to socially relevant stimuli, wherein fundamentally, neurophysiological methods are able to provide a measure of processing that may be masked at a behavioural level. The present study aimed to identify the neurophysiological indices of the visuospatial attentional dynamics of gaze cueing, specifically considering on the functional dynamics of the N2. Method: Electroencephalographic (EEG) activity and behavioural response time (RT) was recorded from 31 healthy adult participants during a gaze cueing paradigm wherein participants responded to presentations of a lateralised target on valid (congruently cued) and invalid (incongruently cued) trials. The N2 component of the event related potentials (ERPs) were derived with separate PCAs for each cue type. Results: In line with behavioural gaze cueing effects (i.e. faster RTs to valid trials compared to invalid trials) (t(30)=5.784, p<.001), the N2b amplitude was greater frontally on invalid trials relative to valid trials (F=22.57, p<.001). Conclusions: Enhanced frontal activation on invalid (incongruently cued) trials evidences an inhibitory mechanism in response to expectancy violations, wherein the N2b serves as a marker of the allocation of attention in the spatial domain. Neurophysiological investigations of gaze cueing may be extended to differentiate processing of social and non-social stimuli. Keywords: Event Related Potentials (ERPs), gaze cueing, spatial attention, Principal Components Analysis (PCA), N2b Conference: ASP2017: 27th Annual Meeting for the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology, Parramatta, Australia, 29 Nov - 1 Dec, 2017. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Abstract (Student Award) Citation: Wei G, Rushby JA, Sufani C and De Blasio F (2019). Neurophysiological correlates of gaze processing. Conference Abstract: ASP2017: 27th Annual Meeting for the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2017.224.00004 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 30 Oct 2017; Published Online: 25 Jan 2019. * Correspondence: Ms. Grace Wei, University of New South Wales, Kensington, Australia, grace.wei@sydney.edu.au Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Grace Wei Jacqueline A Rushby Christopher Sufani Frances De Blasio Google Grace Wei Jacqueline A Rushby Christopher Sufani Frances De Blasio Google Scholar Grace Wei Jacqueline A Rushby Christopher Sufani Frances De Blasio PubMed Grace Wei Jacqueline A Rushby Christopher Sufani Frances De Blasio Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.