Space-based and object-centered gaze cuing of attention in right hemisphere-damaged patients.

Mario Dalmaso,Luigi Castelli,Marta Buccheri,Daniela Primon,Konstantinos Priftis,Giovanni Galfano,Silvia Tronco

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01119

Abstract

Gaze cuing of attention is a well established phenomenon consisting of the tendency to shift attention to the location signaled by the averted gaze of other individuals. Evidence suggests that such phenomenon might follow intrinsic object-centered features of the head containing the gaze cue. In the present exploratory study, we aimed to investigate whether such object-centered component is present in neuropsychological patients with a lesion involving the right hemisphere, which is known to play a critical role both in orienting of attention and in face processing. To this purpose, we used a modified gaze-cuing paradigm in which a centrally placed head with averted gaze was presented either in the standard upright position or rotated 90° clockwise or anti-clockwise. Afterward, a to-be-detected target was presented either in the right or in the left hemifield. The results showed that gaze cuing of attention was present only when the target appeared in the left visual hemifield and was not modulated by head orientation. This suggests that gaze cuing of attention in right hemisphere-damaged patients can operate within different frames of reference.

Highlights

The eyes of our conspecifics represent a privileged target for our attention, as shown by several recent studies (e.g., Birmingham et al, 2008; Levy et al, 2013; Boggia and Ristic, 2015)
This pattern of results is fully consistent with the findings reported by Bayliss et al (2004), and it confirms that the paradigm used here is suitable for revealing both a space-based and an object-centered component in gaze cuing
Hemifield (2: right vs. left) was included as withinparticipant factor in order to investigate the potential presence of lateralized effects in right hemisphere-damaged patients

Summary

Introduction

The eyes of our conspecifics represent a privileged target for our attention, as shown by several recent studies (e.g., Birmingham et al, 2008; Levy et al, 2013; Boggia and Ristic, 2015). The relevance of the eye gaze of others has been testified by a phenomenon known as gaze cuing of attention, which consists of the tendency to shift attention in the direction gazed by a face (for a review, see Frischen et al, 2007). This can be empirically investigated by asking participants to manually respond to a lateralized target that is preceded by the onset of a task-irrelevant centrally placed face with averted gaze. Shorter reaction times (RTs) are generally observed when the target appears at the same spatial location indicated by the gaze

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion