Gaze and arrow cueing of attention reveals individual differences along the autism spectrum as a function of target context

Observing averted gaze results in a reflexive shift of attention to the gazed‐at location. In two experiments, participants scoring high and low on the Autism‐Spectrum Quotient questionnaire (AQ; Baron‐Cohen, Wheelwright, Skinner, Martin, & Clubley, 2001 ) observed arrow and gaze cues to investigate cueing effect magnitude as a function of the context in which peripheral targets could appear. While identical cueing effects were found with gaze and arrow cues, the more striking results concerned target stimuli. In Experiment 1, targets could appear on a peripheral face, or on scrambled face parts. Overall, greater cueing effects were found when the target appeared on a face. However, this face bias was only observed in participants with low AQ scores, whereas high AQ scorers oriented more to scrambled features. Experiment 2 found equal cueing to targets appearing on tools, as compared with tool parts. However, individual differences were again observed, where low AQ scorers showed larger cueing towards tools, while high scorers oriented more to scrambled parts, as in Experiment 1. These results support the idea that low AQ individuals orient strongly to objects attended by others. However, since the same results were found for arrow cues, this effect may generalize to all central cues to attention. High AQ scorers possessing many more autistic‐like traits tended to orient more to scrambled shapes, perhaps reflecting a bias for orienting to local details.     

Eye gaze versus arrows as spatial cues: two qualitatively different modes of attentional selection

This study aimed to evaluate the type of attentional selection (location- and/or object-based) triggered by two different types of central noninformative cues: eye gaze and arrows. Two rectangular objects were presented in the visual field, and subjects' attention was directed to the end of a rectangle via the observation of noninformative directional arrows or eye gaze. Similar experiments with peripheral cues have shown an object-based effect: faster target identification when the target is presented on the cued object as compared to the uncued object, even when the distance between target and cue was the same. The three reported experiments aimed to compare the location- and object-based attentional orienting observed with arrows and eye gaze, in order to dissociate the orienting mechanisms underlying the two types of orienting cues. Results showed similar cueing effects on the cued versus oppositely cued locations for the two cue types, replicating several studies with nonpredictive gaze and arrow cues. However, a pure object-based effect occurred only when an arrow cue was presented, whereas a pure location-based effect was only found for eye-gaze cues. It is suggested that attention is nonspecifically directed to nearby objects when a noninformative arrow is used as cue, whereas it is selectively directed to a specific cued location when noninformative eye gaze is used. This may be mediated by theory of mind mechanisms.     

Sex differences in eye gaze and symbolic cueing of attention.

Observing a face with averted eyes results in a reflexive shift of attention to the gazed-at location. Here we present results that show that this effect is weaker in males than in females (Experiment 1). This result is predicted by the 'extreme male brain' theory of autism (Baron-Cohen, 2003), which suggests that males in the normal population should display more autism-like traits than females (e.g., poor joint attention). Indeed, participants' scores on the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Stott, Bolton, & Goodyear, 2001) negatively correlated with cueing magnitude. Furthermore, exogenous orienting did not differ between the sexes in two peripheral cueing experiments (Experiments 2a and 2b). However, a final experiment showed that using nonpredictive arrows instead of eyes as a central cue also revealed a large gender difference. This demonstrates that reduced orienting from central cues in males generalizes beyond gaze cues. These results show that while peripheral cueing is equivalent in the male and female brains, the attention systems of the two sexes treat noninformative symbolic cues very differently.     

Resolving conflicting views: Gaze and arrow cues do not trigger rapid reflexive shifts of attention

It has become widely accepted that the direction of another individual's eye gaze induces rapid, automatic, attentional orienting, due to it being such a vital cue as to where in our environment we should attend. This automatic orienting has also been associated with the directional-arrow cues used in studies of spatial attention. Here, we present evidence that the response-time cueing effects reported for spatially nonpredictive gaze and arrow cues are not the result of rapid, automatic shifts of attention. For both cue types, response-time effects were observed only for long-duration cue and target stimuli that overlapped temporally, were largest when the cues were presented simultaneously with the response-relevant target, and were driven by a slowing of responses for invalidly cued targets rather than speeding for validly cued ones. These results argue against automatic attention-orienting accounts and support a novel spatial-incongruency explanation for a whole class of rapid behavioural cueing effects.     

Investigating hemispheric lateralization of reflexive attention to gaze and arrow cues

Recent studies have demonstrated that central cues, such as eyes and arrows, reflexively trigger attentional shifts. However, it is not clear whether the attentional mechanisms induced by these two cues are similar or rather differ in some important way. We investigated hemispheric lateralization of the orienting effects induced by the two cue types in a group of 48 healthy participants comparing arrows and eye gaze as central non-predictive cues in a discrimination task, in which a target stimulus was briefly presented in one of two peripheral positions (left or right of fixation). As predicted by neuropsychological data, reflexive orienting to gaze cues was only observed when the target was presented in the left visual field, whereas reflexive orienting to arrow cues occurred for targets presented in both left and right visual fields.     

Gaze and arrow distractors influence saccade trajectories similarly

Perceiving someone's averted eye-gaze is thought to result in an automatic shift of attention and in the preparation of an oculomotor response in the direction of perceived gaze. Although gaze cues have been regarded as being special in this respect, recent studies have found evidence for automatic attention shifts with nonsocial stimuli, such as arrow cues. Here, we directly compared the effects of social and nonsocial cues on eye movement preparation by examining the modulation of saccade trajectories made in the presence of eye-gaze, arrows, or peripheral distractors. At a short stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between the distractor and the target, saccades deviated towards the direction of centrally presented arrow distractors, but away from the peripheral distractors. No significant trajectory deviations were found for gaze distractors. At the longer SOA, saccades deviated away from the direction of the distractor for all three distractor types, but deviations were smaller for the centrally presented gaze and arrow distractors. These effects were independent of whether line-drawings or photos of faces were used and could not be explained by differences in the spatial properties of the peripheral distractor. The results suggest that all three types of distractors (gaze, arrow, peripheral) can induce the automatic programming of an eye movement. Moreover, the findings suggest that gaze and arrow distractors affect oculomotor preparation similarly, whereas peripheral distractors, which are classically regarded as eliciting an automatic shift of attention and an oculomotor response, induce a stronger and faster acting influence on response preparation and the corresponding inhibition of that response.     

The neural correlates of social attention: automatic orienting to social and nonsocial cues

Previous evidence suggests that directional social cues (e.g., eye gaze) cause automatic shifts in attention toward gaze direction. It has been proposed that automatic attentional orienting driven by social cues (social orienting) involves a different neural network from automatic orienting driven by nonsocial cues. However, previous neuroimaging studies on social orienting have only compared gaze cues to symbolic cues, which typically engage top-down mechanisms. Therefore, we directly compared the neural activity involved in social orienting to that involved in purely automatic nonsocial orienting. Twenty participants performed a spatial cueing task consisting of social (gaze) cues and automatic nonsocial (peripheral squares) cues presented at short and long stimulus (cue-to-target) onset asynchronies (SOA), while undergoing fMRI. Behaviorally, a facilitation effect was found for both cue types at the short SOA, while an inhibitory effect (inhibition of return: IOR) was found only for nonsocial cues at the long SOA. Imaging results demonstrated that social and nonsocial cues recruited a largely overlapping fronto-parietal network. In addition, social cueing evoked greater activity in occipito-temporal regions at both SOAs, while nonsocial cueing recruited greater subcortical activity, but only for the long SOA (when IOR was found). A control experiment, including central arrow cues, confirmed that the occipito-temporal activity was at least in part due to the social nature of the cue and not simply to the location of presentation (central vs. peripheral). These results suggest an evolutionary trajectory for automatic orienting, from predominantly subcortical mechanisms for nonsocial orienting to predominantly cortical mechanisms for social orienting.     

Orienting to counterpredictive gaze and arrow cues

In separate experiments, counterpredictive arrow, eye gaze, or abrupt-onset cues were used to test the hypothesis that individual differences in voluntary control influence involuntary orienting. In contrast with previous findings (Friesen, Ristic, & Kingstone, 2004), involuntary orienting effects were found for arrow cues.Furthermore, for both eye gaze and arrow cues, individual differences in voluntarycontrol were associatedwith involuntary orienting: Involuntary orienting effects were larger for participants who were more effective at using the cue to reorient attention, and also for participants who reported greater ability to control attention. Orienting to abrupt-onset cues was not correlated to individual differences in self-reported attentional control. The findings show that eye gaze and arrow cues instigate similar involuntary and voluntary effects and that involuntary orienting to symbolic cues is linked to individual differences in voluntary control.     

Fixation instruction influences gaze cueing

Studies have shown that perceiving another person's gaze shift facilitates responses in the direction of the perceived gaze shift. While it is often assumed that participants in these experiments remain fixated on the cue in the cueing interval, eye gaze is not always recorded to confirm this. The data presented here suggest that the effect of gaze cues on responses to peripheral targets depends on whether participants make eye movements prior to the onset of the target. Participants who were required to fixate showed cueing effects at short cue-target intervals, but no cueing at later intervals. Participants who could look around, often chose to do so, and showed the same positive cueing effects at the shorter interval, but negative cueing effects (suggestive of inhibition of return) at the longer interval.     

Effects of informative peripheral cues on eye movements: Revisiting William James’ “derived attention”

Two experiments examined effects of peripheral information on the latency of saccadic eye movements. In Experiment 1, simple target stimuli were presented to the left or right visual field. Prior to each target, a pair of cue letters was presented for 40msec bilaterally. The relative location of the letters (W-S or S-W) was related to target location, but participants were not informed of this contingency. After a brief practice period, saccadic latencies were faster for targets at the likely location, as indicated by the letter pair. This derived peripheral cueing effect was related to participants' awareness of the relation between cue type and target location. Experiments 2A and 2B employed monocular viewing in order to compare performance across the nasal and temporal visual fields. The effect observed in Experiment 1 was confined to the nasal visual field. In a reflexive orienting condition, the effect of a unilateral letter cue was larger in the temporal visual field. It is concluded that the neurocognitive processes responsible for derived peripheral cueing are distinct from those involved in either reflexive or voluntary orienting.     

Attentional shift by eye gaze requires joint attention: Eye gaze cues are unique to shift attention1

Researchers have demonstrated that attentional shift triggered by gaze direction is reflexive. However, here we show that attentional shift by gaze direction was not always reflexive, but could be modulated by another's perspective. In Experiment 1, a schematic face's line of sight to a peripheral target was obstructed by a vertical barrier located between the face and the target under two conditions. However, the line of sight of the face was clear under another two conditions, in which the barrier was located behind the line of sight by utilizing a depth cue. The gaze cue shifted attention only when the line of sight was not blocked (i.e. joint attention was attained). The arrow cue did not shift attention regardless of the obstruction conditions in Experiment 2. These results suggest that attentional shift by gaze cues, but not arrow cues, involve a higher social cognitive process such as interpretation of the gaze.     

Are eyes special? It depends on how you look at it

Recent behavioral data have shown that central nonpredictive gaze direction triggers reflexive shifts of attention toward the gazed-at location (e.g., Friesen & Kingstone, 1998). Friesen and Kingstone suggested that this reflexive orienting effect is unique to biologically relevant stimuli. Three experiments were conducted to test this proposal by comparing the attentional orienting produced by nonpredictive gaze cues (biologically relevant) with the attentional orienting produced by nonpredictive arrow cues (biologically irrelevant). Both types of cues produced reflexive orienting in adults (Experiment 1) and preschoolers (Experiment 2), suggesting that gaze cues are not special. However, Experiment 3 showed that nonpredictive arrows produced reflexive orienting in both hemispheres of a split-brain patient. This contrasts with Kingstone, Friesen, and Gazzaniga's (2000) finding that nonpredictive gaze cues produce reflexive orienting only in the face-processing hemisphere of split-brain patients. Therefore, although nonpredictive eyes and arrows may produce similar behavioral effects, they are not subserved by the same brain systems. Together, these data provide important insight into the nature of the representations of directional stimuli involved in reflexive attentional orienting.     

The influence of social and symbolic cues on observers' gaze behaviour

Research has shown that social and symbolic cues presented in isolation and at fixation have strong effects on observers, but it is unclear how cues compare when they are presented away from fixation and embedded in natural scenes. We here compare the effects of two types of social cue (gaze and pointing gestures) and one type of symbolic cue (arrow signs) on eye movements of observers under two viewing conditions (free viewing vs. a memory task). The results suggest that social cues are looked at more quickly, for longer and more frequently than the symbolic arrow cues. An analysis of saccades initiated from the cue suggests that the pointing cue leads to stronger cueing than the gaze and the arrow cue. While the task had only a weak influence on gaze orienting to the cues, stronger cue following was found for free viewing compared to the memory task.     

眼睛注视线索提示效应: 内源性注意还是外源性注意?

采用改进的Posner视-空间线索提示范式, 对眼睛注视线索提示效应(eyes gaze cueing effect)的加工机制进行了探讨。实验一考察注视提示线索对空间Stroop效应的影响; 实验二考察注视提示线索对特征抽取和特征整合的影响。实验结果显示: 注视线索提示有效时的空间Stroop效应显著大于提示无效的情景; 在单一特征搜索与特征联合搜索任务中, 注视线索提示效应无差别。这说明, 注视线索通过在头脑里形成空间方位表征诱导注意转移; 注视线索通过影响特征抽取、而非特征整合阶段, 对客体加工产生易化。本研究支持注视线索提示效应属于内源性注意的观点。     

眼睛注视的知觉及其线索效应

对眼睛注视知觉、眼睛注视线索效应及其影响因素等相关研究进行了总结和分析。结果发现:(1)婴儿从一出生就对眼睛注视线索表现出强烈的敏感性,眼睛注视知觉对语言和社会等能力的发展有很大影响;(2)颞上沟是加工眼睛注视线索的特异神经结构,它与实时监控情绪和情感的杏仁核存在神经联结,成为社会认知神经系统的重要组成部分;(3)对眼睛注视线索的早期加工显示出特异的脑电活动模式;(4)眼睛注视线索效应与外周线索的反射式效应相类似,但持续时间较长;(5)眼睛注视线索效应不仅受面部结构信息的影响,也受自上而下加工等高水平认知因素的调节,并显示出明显的个体差异。对眼睛注视线索效应的进一步研究应涉及人格判断、喜好评价和心理理论等高级社会认知活动。     

Testing whether gaze cues and arrow cues produce reflexive or volitional shifts of attention

It has been suggested that two types of uninformative central cues produce reflexive orienting: gaze and arrow cues. Using the criterion that voluntary shifts of attention facilitate both response speed and perceptual accuracy, whereas reflexive shifts of attention facilitate only response speed (Prinzmetal, McCool, & Park, 2005), we tested whether these cues produce reflexive or volitional shifts of attention. A cued letter discrimination task was used with both gaze (Experiments 1A and 1B) and arrow (Experiments 2A and 2B) cues, in which participants responded to the identity of the target letter. In the response time (respond speed) tasks, participants were asked to respond as quickly as possible to the target; in the accuracy (perceptual quality) tasks, participants were asked to respond as accurately as possible. For both cue types, compatible cues were found to facilitate response speed but not perceptual accuracy, indicating that both gaze and arrow cues generate reflexive shifts in attention.     

Watch out! Directional threat-related postures cue attention and the eyes

Previous work indicates that threatening facial expressions with averted eye gaze can act as a signal of imminent danger, enhancing attentional orienting in the gazed-at direction. However, this threat-related gaze-cueing effect is only present in individuals reporting high levels of anxiety. The present study used eye tracking to investigate whether additional directional social cues, such as averted angry and fearful human body postures, not only cue attention, but also the eyes. The data show that although body direction did not predict target location, anxious individuals made faster eye movements when fearful or angry postures were facing towards (congruent condition) rather than away (incongruent condition) from peripheral targets. Our results provide evidence for attentional cueing in response to threat-related directional body postures in those with anxiety. This suggests that for such individuals, attention is guided by threatening social stimuli in ways that can influence and bias eye movement behaviour.     

Is chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) spatial attention reflexively triggered by gaze cue?

Humans show a reflexive shift in spatial attention triggered by gaze cues. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) have an excellent ability to follow another's gaze, but they exhibit a limited capacity to engage in triadic interactions based on joint attention, suggesting the possibility of contributions of the different mechanisms underlying joint attention between humans and chimpanzees. The present study thus examined how the chimpanzee's visual spatial attention is triggered by gaze cues. Two chimpanzees showed no clear signs of attention shift triggered by various kinds of nonfacial and facial stimuli with averted gaze under the letter-discrimination tasks but showed significant cueing effects when the head-turning cue was presented in a quasi-dynamic manner. These cueing effects were, however, affected by the predictability of the gaze cue: Highly predictive gaze cues caused stronger cueing effects than less predictive cues. Thus, these results suggest that the shift in spatial attention caused by gaze cues does occur in chimpanzees, but, in contrast to humans, vulnerability against the cue predictability suggests that the voluntary mechanism contributes more dominantly than the reflexive mechanism to this attention shift.     

Nonattentional effects of nonpredictive central cues

Recent evidence suggests that nonpredictive gaze, hand, arrow, and peripheral cues elicit shifts of reflexive attention. In the present article, we address whether these cues also influence the decision criterion in a go/no-go task. Nonpredictive central gaze and hand cues pointed toward or away from the location of an imminent target. Responses to the targets were faster, and false alarm errors were more frequent, when cues pointed toward the target than when they were directed away from it. Although a similar pattern was observed with nonpredictive arrow cues, it was not seen with nonpredictive peripheral cues. These results suggest that nonpredictive central cues not only affect attention, but also bias decision processes.     

Attention to arrows: pointing to a new direction

It was long believed that central arrows needed to be spatially predictive to produce a shift in spatial attention. Recent evidence indicates, however, that central spatially nonpredictive directional cues, like arrows, will trigger reflexive shifts in attention. We asked what this recent discovery means for past studies that used predictive directional cues such as arrows. Our findings indicate that predictive arrows produce attention effects that greatly exceed the individual or summed effects of reflexive orienting to nonpredictive arrows and volitional orienting to predictive numbers. This suggests that the especially large effect produced by predictive arrows reflects an interaction between reflexive and volitional orienting. Given the broad application of the predictive arrow cueing paradigm in both past and current research, the present data shed new light on a wide range of investigations, from psychophysical studies of basic attention to behavioural and neuroimaging studies of cognition and social development.