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. 2018 Dec 11:9:2478.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02478. eCollection 2018.

Visual Fixation Patterns During Viewing of Half-Face Stimuli in Adults: An Eye-Tracking Study

Ágoston Galambos  1   2 , Borbála Turcsán  1 , Katalin Oláh  1   2 , Fruzsina Elekes  1   2 , Anna Gergely  1 , Ildikó Király  2   3 , József Topál  1
Affiliations

Visual Fixation Patterns During Viewing of Half-Face Stimuli in Adults: An Eye-Tracking Study

Ágoston Galambos et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

Human faces play a special role in social cognition, since as a core signal of interpersonal communication, they convey various kinds of information (e.g., about sex, age, race, emotions, intentions). Study 1 aimed to explore how this specialization manifests itself in eye movements when looking at neutral, static, female faces. We monitored the gaze pattern of 23 adult participants using eye-tracking method. To test if template-driven processes are involved in face perception, and to see how inversion affects fixations on special facial stimuli, we presented vertically cut half-faces in upright and inverted positions (so half of each stimulus represented a half-face, whereas the other half was left blank). Our results corroborate prior findings consistently demonstrating the dominance of the triangular area marked by the eyes and the mouth, measured by the number and duration of fixations. In addition, we found evidence for so-called complementary fixations, targeted at the non-informative parts (i.e., the half that does not contain any facial information) of the pictures, suggesting that other mechanisms beyond purely stimulus-driven ones might drive looking behavior when scanning faces. Study 2 was intended to test if these systematic eye movements are face-specific or occur in case of other visual objects as well.

Keywords: complementary fixations; face processing; face template; fixation patterns; inversion.

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Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
An example of the four stimulus versions presented in the study. (A) Upright – left side visible. (B) Inverted – left side visible. (C) Upright – right side visible. (D) Inverted – right side visible. The fixation data were collected for six areas of interest (AOIs) (E): (1) eye visible, (2) nose visible, (3) mouth visible, (4) eye covered, (5) nose covered, (6) mouth covered, as well as the out of AOI areas. The images were obtained from the Radboud Faces Database®, with permission (Langner et al., 2010).
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Relative fixation values targeted at the three regions on the visible half of the stimulus.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Relative fixation values targeted at the three regions on the covered and the visible side of the stimulus.
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Fixation heatmap of a left upright stimulus.
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
Fixation heatmap of a right upright stimulus.
FIGURE 6
FIGURE 6
Fixation heatmap of a left inverted stimulus.
FIGURE 7
FIGURE 7
Fixation heatmap of a right inverted stimulus.
FIGURE 8
FIGURE 8
Areas of interest for a car stimulus.
FIGURE 9
FIGURE 9
Areas of interest for a house stimulus.
FIGURE 10
FIGURE 10
Areas of interest for a tree stimulus.
FIGURE 11
FIGURE 11
Fixation heatmap of a left inverted car stimulus.
FIGURE 12
FIGURE 12
Fixation heatmap of a left upright house stimulus.
FIGURE 13
FIGURE 13
Fixation heatmap of a left upright tree stimulus.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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