School of Psychology, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, LN6 7TS, UK.
Psychol Res. 2012 May;76(3):263-9. doi: 10.1007/s00426-011-0340-9. Epub 2011 May 11.
While viewing faces, humans often demonstrate a natural gaze bias towards the left visual field, that is, the right side of the viewee's face is often inspected first and for longer periods. Previous studies have suggested that this gaze asymmetry is a part of the gaze pattern associated with face exploration, but its relation with perceptual processing of facial cues is unclear. In this study we recorded participants' saccadic eye movements while exploring face images under different task instructions (free viewing, judging familiarity and judging facial expression). We observed a consistent left gaze bias in face viewing irrespective of task demands. The probability of the first fixation and the proportion of overall fixations directed at the left hemiface were indistinguishable across different task instructions or across different facial expressions. It seems that the left gaze bias is an automatic reflection of hemispheric lateralisation in face processing, and is not necessarily correlated with the perceptual processing of a specific type of facial information.
在观看人脸时，人类通常会表现出一种自然的凝视偏向左侧视野，也就是说，观看者的右侧面部通常会先被观察，并且观察时间会更长。先前的研究表明，这种凝视不对称是与面部探索相关的凝视模式的一部分，但它与面部线索的感知处理的关系尚不清楚。在这项研究中，我们在参与者根据不同的任务指令（自由观察、判断熟悉度和判断面部表情）探索面部图像时记录了他们的眼跳运动。我们观察到，在观看面部时，无论任务需求如何，都存在一致的左侧凝视偏向。在不同的任务指令或不同的面部表情下，第一次注视的概率和指向左侧半脸的总注视比例都没有明显区别。看来，左侧凝视偏向是面孔处理中半球侧化的自动反映，不一定与特定类型的面部信息的感知处理相关。
