Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2011 Mar 21;19(4):483-510.
doi: 10.1080/13506285.2011.552895.

Is it in the eyes? Dissociating the role of emotion and perceptual features of emotionally expressive faces in modulating orienting to eye gaze

Sarah J Bayless  1 , Missy Glover  2 , Margot J Taylor  3 , Roxane J Itier  2
Affiliations

Is it in the eyes? Dissociating the role of emotion and perceptual features of emotionally expressive faces in modulating orienting to eye gaze

Sarah J Bayless et al. Vis cogn. .

Abstract

This study investigated the role of the eye region of emotional facial expressions in modulating gaze orienting effects. Eye widening is characteristic of fearful and surprised expressions and may significantly increase the salience of perceived gaze direction. This perceptual bias rather than the emotional valence of certain expressions may drive enhanced gaze orienting effects. In a series of three experiments involving low anxiety participants, different emotional expressions were tested using a gaze-cueing paradigm. Fearful and surprised expressions enhanced the gaze orienting effect compared with happy or angry expressions. Presenting only the eye regions as cueing stimuli eliminated this effect whereas inversion globally reduced it. Both inversion and the use of eyes only attenuated the emotional valence of stimuli without affecting the perceptual salience of the eyes. The findings thus suggest that low-level stimulus features alone are not sufficient to drive gaze orienting modulations by emotion. Rather, they interact with the emotional valence of the expression that appears critical. The study supports the view that rapid processing of fearful and surprised emotional expressions can potentiate orienting to another person's averted gaze in non-anxious people.

Keywords: Emotional face processing; Eye gaze processing; Social attention.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Example of emotional expressions and gaze directions. (a) Anger, left averted gaze; (b) fearful, straight gaze; (c) happy, cross-eyed; (d) neutral right averted gaze; (e) surprised, straight gaze. The cross-eyed gaze stimuli were used only in Experiment 1.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Experiment 1 (N=20), error bars represent SE. (a) Mean RTs for each gaze condition and emotion; (b) mean gaze-orienting effects (calculated by subtracting the RT to congruent trials from the RT to incongruent trials) for each emotion.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Experiment 2 (N=43), error bars represent SE. (a) Mean RTs for upright faces for each gaze condition and emotion; (b) mean gaze-orienting effects for each emotion for upright faces; (c) mean RTs for inverted faces for each gaze condition and emotion; (d) mean gaze-orienting effects for each emotion for inverted faces.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Experiment 3 (N=32), error bars represent SE. (a) Mean RTs for upright eyes for each gaze condition and emotion; (b) mean gaze-orienting effects for each emotion for upright eyes; (c) mean RTs for inverted eyes for each gaze condition and emotion; (d) mean gaze-orienting effects for each emotion for inverted faces.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Adams RB, Jr, Kleck RE. Perceived gaze direction and the processing of facial displays of emotion. Psychological Science. 2003;14(6):644–647. - PubMed
    1. Ambadar Z, Schooler JW, Cohn JF. Deciphering the enigmatic face: The importance of facial dynamics in interpreting subtle facial expressions. Psychological Science. 2005;16(5):403–410. - PubMed
    1. Ando S. Luminance-induced shift in the apparent direction of gaze. Perception. 2002;31:657–674. - PubMed
    1. Baron-Cohen S. Mindblindness: An essay on autism and theory-of-mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; 1995.
    1. Baron-Cohen S, Wheelwright S, Hill J, Raste Y, Plumb I. The “Reading the mind in the eyes” test revised version: A study with normal adults, and adults with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 2001;42(2):241–251. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources