How ubiquitous is the direct-gaze advantage? Evidence for an averted-gaze advantage in a gaze-discrimination task

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Averted gaze; Direct gaze; Gaze discrimination; Gaze processing; Social cognition.

Fig. 1

Stimulus material used throughout all experiments showing stimuli in (A) upright, (B) inverted, and (C) eyes-only condition with different gaze conditions (from left to right): direct gaze, left gaze, and right gaze, and the respective box-scrambled masks

Fig. 2

Schematic illustration of a trial. After the presentation of a fixation screen for 750 ms, the fixation cross was replaced by the target gaze stimulus (presentation duration: 35 ms) that was masked afterwards by a scrambled version of the respective stimulus (presentation duration: 265 ms). After that, a response screen was displayed which required pressing the key which corresponded to the gaze direction of the previously presented target stimulus as quickly and accurately as possible. Note that the response screen was different with respect to the response options displayed, depending on the design of the respective experiment. Following the response, participants were required to indicate the level of confidence associated with their response (not displayed in Fig. 2, see section Procedure for further details)

Fig. 3

Accuracy as a function of context (upright vs. inverted vs. eyes only) and gaze (direct vs. averted (Experiment 1, 1a, and 2b); direct vs. left vs. right (Experiment 3a and 3b)). Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals (Loftus & Masson, 1994)

Fig. 4

Response times (RTs) as a function of context (upright vs. inverted vs. eyes only) and gaze (direct vs. averted (Experiments 1, 1a, and 2b); direct vs. left vs. right (Experiment 3a and 3b)). Error bars represent 95% confidence intervals (Loftus & Masson, 1994)