Peripheral processing of gaze

Abstract

When looking at someone, we combine information about their head orientation and eye deviation to judge their direction of gaze. What remains unknown, however, is how these cues combine when we are not looking directly at the person, but rather are using our peripheral vision. Given that peripheral vision helps future attention, understanding how we perceive other people's gaze is key to determining their future actions. To examine this, we asked participants to categorize gaze direction in faces whose heads were turned in different directions, and which were viewed using either central or peripheral vision. We report that the weight given to head orientation increases in the periphery, in which forward-facing heads were categorized as direct over a wider range of eye deviations than when viewed centrally. When peripheral heads were turned, the number of direct responses fell for all gaze deviations with no consistent shift in left-right responses toward the head rotation. For centrally presented heads, head orientation typically repulsed the perceived direction of gaze, and our finding of no consistent shift in responses indicates that such effects are reduced in the periphery. This is not simply the result of poorer spatial resolution in the periphery-other influences, such as crowding and priors for gaze or head direction, may play a role. (PsycINFO Database Record