Faculté de Psychologie et des Sciences de l'Education, Université de Genève, Switzerland.
Faculté de Psychologie et des Sciences de l'Education, Université de Genève, Switzerland.
Cognition. 2021 Jul;212:104734. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104734. Epub 2021 Apr 19.
Gaze directed at the observer (direct gaze) is an important and highly salient social signal with multiple effects on cognitive processes and behavior. It is disputed whether the effect of direct gaze is caused by attentional capture or increased arousal. Time estimation may provide an answer because attentional capture predicts an underestimation of time whereas arousal predicts an overestimation. In a temporal bisection task, observers were required to classify the duration of a stimulus as short or long. Stimulus duration was selected randomly between 988 and 1479 ms. When gaze was directed at the observer, participants underestimated stimulus duration, suggesting that effects of direct gaze are caused by attentional capture, not increased arousal. Critically, this effect was limited to dynamic stimuli where gaze appeared to move toward the participant. The underestimation was present with stimuli showing a full face, but also with stimuli showing only the eye region, inverted faces and high-contrast eye-like stimuli. However, it was absent with static pictures of full faces and dynamic nonfigurative stimuli. Because the effect of direct gaze depended on motion, which is common in naturalistic scenes, more consideration needs to be given to the ecological validity of stimuli in the study of social attention.
注视观察者（直接注视）是一种重要且高度显著的社会信号，它对认知过程和行为有多种影响。直接注视的效果是由注意力捕获引起的，还是由唤醒度增加引起的，这一点存在争议。时间估计可能提供一个答案，因为注意力捕获预测时间低估，而唤醒度增加预测时间高估。在时间二分任务中，观察者需要将刺激的持续时间分类为短或长。刺激持续时间在 988 到 1479 毫秒之间随机选择。当目光直接注视观察者时，参与者会低估刺激的持续时间，这表明直接注视的影响是由注意力捕获引起的，而不是唤醒度增加引起的。至关重要的是，这种效果仅限于动态刺激，其中目光似乎向参与者移动。这种低估不仅存在于显示整个面部的刺激中，也存在于仅显示眼部区域、倒置面部和高对比度眼部刺激中。然而，在显示整个面部的静态图片和动态非图形刺激中，这种低估并不存在。由于直接注视的效果取决于运动，而运动在自然场景中很常见，因此在研究社会注意力时，需要更多地考虑刺激的生态有效性。
