“Reading the Mind in the Eyes” Is Associated with Top-Down Visual Attention

Abstract

The “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” test (Eyes Test; Baron-Cohen et al., J Child Psychol Psychiatry, 38, 813–822, (1997), Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42, 241–251 2001 is one of the most commonly used and extensively validated tests for assessing social cognitive deficits, especially among those related to autism and schizophrenia. Despite its widespread use, the cognitive mechanisms underlying the Eyes Test are still unclear. We propose that top-down visual attention will result in better performance on the Eyes Test. Seventy-four female participants completed the Eyes Test in conjunction with three congruency tasks, including the flanker, number Stroop, and Navon’s global-local tasks. According to the hypothesis, the Eyes Test scores were found to be negatively associated with the response congruency effects—the difference in performance between congruent and incongruent trials. The neural and cognitive mechanisms underlying these associations are further discussed, and the Eyes Test features that may require top-down visual attention will be explored in depth.