Abstract
Gaze direction is an important social communication tool. Global and local visual information are known to play specific roles in processing socially relevant information from a face. The current study investigated whether global visual information has a primary role during gaze-cued orienting of attention and, as such, may influence quality of interaction. Adults performed a gaze-cueing task in which a centrally presented face cued (valid or invalid) the location of a peripheral target through a gaze shift. We measured brain activity (electroencephalography) towards the cue and target and behavioral responses (manual and saccadic reaction times) towards the target. The faces contained global (i.e. lower spatial frequencies), local (i.e. higher spatial frequencies), or a selection of both global and local (i.e. mid-band spatial frequencies) visual information. We found a gaze cue-validity effect (i.e. valid versus invalid), but no interaction effects with spatial frequency content. Furthermore, behavioral responses towards the target were in all cue conditions slower when lower spatial frequencies were not present in the gaze cue. These results suggest that whereas gaze-cued orienting of attention can be driven by both global and local visual information, global visual information determines the speed of behavioral responses towards other entities appearing in the surrounding of gaze cue stimuli.
Highlights
The use of eye gaze has, besides mere visual detection, several social-cognitive functions (e.g. [1,2])
The aim of the present study was to investigate in adults, with neural and behavioral measures and well-described stimuli, whether global visual information, as opposed to local visual information, has a primary role during gaze-cued orienting of attention
We hypothesized that global visual information has a primary role during gazecued orienting of attention: the laterality and gaze cue-validity effect are primarily driven by global visual information and diminished when only local visual information is present
Summary
The use of eye gaze has, besides mere visual detection, several social-cognitive functions (e.g. [1,2]). The use of eye gaze has, besides mere visual detection, several social-cognitive functions In social situations eye gaze is an important social communication tool, and is referred to as social gaze. Any gaze-based interaction starts with eye contact between two individuals, a situation designated as mutual gaze [2]. Mutual gaze indicates communicative intent and ‘opens the channel’ of social interaction [2,3]. Subsequent averted gaze may provide a cue that another individual’s attention has shifted toward another entity (e.g. person, event, object). Averted gaze often results in a reflexive corresponding shift of attention in the observer
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