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. 2007 Feb 22;3(1):64-7.
doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2006.0564.

Familiarity accentuates gaze cuing in women but not men

Robert O Deaner  1 , Stephen V Shepherd, Michael L Platt
Affiliations

Familiarity accentuates gaze cuing in women but not men

Robert O Deaner et al. Biol Lett. .

Abstract

Gaze cuing, the tendency to shift attention in the direction other individuals are looking, is hypothesized to depend on a distinct neural module. One expectation of such a module is that information processing should be encapsulated within it. Here, we tested whether familiarity, a type of social knowledge, penetrates the neural circuits governing gaze cuing. Male and female subjects viewed the face of an adult male looking left or right and then pressed a keypad to indicate the location of a target appearing randomly left or right. Responses were faster for targets congruent with gaze direction. Moreover, gaze cuing was stronger in females than males. Contrary to the modularity hypothesis, familiarity enhanced gaze cuing, but only in females. Sex differences in the effects of familiarity on gaze cuing may reflect greater adaptive significance of social information for females than males.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Target localization task. Model's gaze direction did not predict subsequent target location.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Sex differences in the effect of familiarity on gaze following. Mean cuing effect (±s.e.m) for male (dashed lines) and female (solid lines) subjects from (a) within the same department (familiar) as the gaze models or (b) from outside the department (unfamiliar).
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