Department of Psychology, Würzburg University, Röntgenring 11, 97070, Würzburg, Germany.
Department of Psychology, Leibniz University Hannover, Hannover, Germany.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2021 Jan;83(1):215-237. doi: 10.3758/s13414-020-02147-3. Epub 2020 Nov 1.
Human eye gaze conveys an enormous amount of socially relevant information, and the rapid assessment of gaze direction is of particular relevance in order to adapt behavior accordingly. Specifically, previous research demonstrated evidence for an advantage of processing direct (vs. averted) gaze. The present study examined discrimination performance for gaze direction (direct vs. averted) under controlled presentation conditions: Using a backward-masking gaze-discrimination task, photographs of faces with direct and averted gaze were briefly presented, followed by a mask stimulus. Additionally, effects of facial context on gaze discrimination were assessed by either presenting gaze direction in isolation (i.e., by only showing the eye region) or in the context of an upright or inverted face. Across three experiments, we consistently observed a facial context effect with highest discrimination performance for faces presented in upright position, lower performance for inverted faces, and lowest performance for eyes presented in isolation. Additionally, averted gaze was generally responded to faster and with higher accuracy than direct gaze, indicating an averted-gaze advantage. Overall, the results suggest that direct gaze is not generally associated with processing advantages, thereby highlighting the important role of presentation conditions and task demands in gaze perception.
人类的眼神传达了大量与社交相关的信息，因此快速评估注视方向对于相应地调整行为尤为重要。具体而言，先前的研究证明了处理直接（相对于转移）注视具有优势。本研究在受控呈现条件下检查了注视方向（直接与转移）的辨别性能：使用后向掩蔽注视辨别任务，短暂呈现具有直接和转移注视的面部照片，然后呈现掩蔽刺激。此外，通过单独呈现注视方向（即仅显示眼部区域）或在正面或倒置面部的背景下呈现注视方向，评估了面部背景对注视辨别力的影响。在三个实验中，我们一致观察到面部背景效应，即正面呈现的面孔具有最高的辨别性能，倒置的面孔的性能较低，而单独呈现的眼睛的性能最低。此外，转移的注视通常比直接的注视反应更快且更准确，这表明转移注视具有优势。总体而言，结果表明直接注视通常不会与处理优势相关联，从而突出了呈现条件和任务要求在注视感知中的重要作用。
