Psychology Department, University of Milano-Bicocca, Edificio U6, Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milan, Italy.
Exp Brain Res. 2013 Jan;224(1):93-106. doi: 10.1007/s00221-012-3291-5. Epub 2012 Oct 13.
Distracting gaze has been shown to elicit automatic gaze following. However, it is still debated whether the effects of perceived gaze are a simple automatic spatial orienting response or are instead sensitive to the context (i.e. goals and task demands). In three experiments, we investigated the conditions under which gaze following occurs. Participants were instructed to saccade towards one of two lateral targets. A face distracter, always present in the background, could gaze towards: (a) a task-relevant target--("matching" goal-directed gaze shift)--congruent or incongruent with the instructed direction, (b) a task-irrelevant target, orthogonal to the one instructed ("non-matching" goal-directed gaze shift), or (c) an empty spatial location (no-goal-directed gaze shift). Eye movement recordings showed faster saccadic latencies in correct trials in congruent conditions especially when the distracting gaze shift occurred before the instruction to make a saccade. Interestingly, while participants made a higher proportion of gaze-following errors (i.e. errors in the direction of the distracting gaze) in the incongruent conditions when the distracter's gaze shift preceded the instruction onset indicating an automatic gaze following, they never followed the distracting gaze when it was directed towards an empty location or a stimulus that was never the target. Taken together, these findings suggest that gaze following is likely to be a product of both automatic and goal-driven orienting mechanisms.
分散的注视已被证明会引起自动的注视跟随。然而，人们仍然在争论感知到的注视的影响是简单的自动空间定向反应，还是对上下文（即目标和任务需求）敏感。在三个实验中，我们研究了发生注视跟随的条件。参与者被指示向两个侧目标中的一个扫视。一个面部分心物始终存在于背景中，可以注视：(a)与任务相关的目标——（“匹配”目标导向的注视转移）——与指令方向一致或不一致，(b)与任务不相关的目标，与指令的方向正交（“不匹配”目标导向的注视转移），或(c)空的空间位置（无目标导向的注视转移）。眼动记录显示，在一致条件下，正确试次的眼跳潜伏期更快，尤其是当分心的注视转移发生在指令发出之前。有趣的是，尽管当分心者的注视转移先于指令开始时，参与者在不一致条件下会出现更高比例的注视跟随错误（即朝着分心注视的方向出错），表明存在自动的注视跟随，但当分心注视指向空位置或从未是目标的刺激时，他们从未跟随分心的注视。综合这些发现表明，注视跟随可能是自动和目标驱动的定向机制的共同产物。
