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。     

Gaze cueing as a function of perceived gaze direction

Previous studies have found that attention is automatically oriented in the direction of other people's gaze. This study directly investigated whether the perceiving gaze direction modulates the orienting of observers' attention. Gaze perception was manipulated by changing the face context (head orientation) of the gaze cue: the perceived gaze angle was increased (or decreased) when the head and gaze are congruent (or incongruent), while the local‐feature information of the eye region was preserved for all stimuli. The results showed that gaze‐cueing effects were enhanced when the perceived gaze direction was averted more toward left or right, and reduced when the perceived gaze direction was closer to direct gaze. The results suggest that gaze‐cueing effects are based on mechanisms specialized for gaze perception, and the magnitude of gaze‐cueing effects was probably a function of the perceived gaze direction.     

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.     

Gaze Perception Triggers Reflexive Visuospatial Orienting

This paper seeks to bring together two previously separate research traditions: research on spatial orienting within the visual cueing paradigm and research into social cognition, addressing our tendency to attend in the direction that another person looks. Cueing methodologies from mainstream attention research were adapted to test the automaticity of orienting in the direction of seen gaze. Three studies manipulated the direction of gaze in a computerized face, which appeared centrally in a frontal view during a peripheral letter-discrimination task. Experiments 1 and 2 found faster discrimination of peripheral target letters on the side the computerized face gazed towards, even though the seen gaze did not predict target side, and despite participants being asked to ignore the face. This suggests reflexive covert and/or overt orienting in the direction of seen gaze, arising even when the observer has no motivation to orient in this way. Experiment 3 found faster letter discrimination on the side the computerized face gazed towards even when participants knew that target letters were four times as likely on the opposite side. This suggests that orienting can arise in the direction of seen gaze even when counter to intentions. The experiments illustrate that methods from mainstream attention research can be usefully applied to social cognition, and that studies of spatial attention may profit from considering its social function.     

Why does gaze enhance mimicry? Placing gaze-mimicry effects in relation to other gaze phenomena

Eye gaze is a powerful signal, which exerts a mixture of arousal, attentional, and social effects on the observer. We recently found a behavioural interaction between eye contact and mimicry where direct gaze rapidly enhanced mimicry of hand movements ). Here, we report two detailed investigations of this effect. In Experiment 1, we compared the effects of “direct gaze”, “averted gaze”, and “gaze to the acting hand” on mimicry and manipulated the sequence of gaze events within a trial. Only direct gaze immediately before the hand action enhanced mimicry. In Experiment 2, we examined the enhancement of mimicry when direct gaze is followed by a “blink” or by “shut eyes”, or by “occluded eyes”. Enhanced mimicry relative to baseline was seen only in the blink condition. Together, these results suggest that ongoing social engagement is necessary for enhanced mimicry. These findings allow us to place the gaze-enhancement effect in the context of other reported gaze phenomena. We suggest that this effect is similar to previously reported audience effects, but is less similar to ostensive cueing effects. This has important implications for our theories of the relationships between social cues and imitation.     

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.     

Objects on a collision path with the observer demand attention

ABSTRACT— How observers distribute limited processing resources to regions of a scene is based on a dynamic balance between current goals and reflexive tendencies. Past research showed that these reflexive tendencies include orienting toward objects that expand as if they were looming toward the observer, presumably because this signal indicates an impending collision. Here we report that during visual search, items that loom abruptly capture attention more strongly when they approach from the periphery rather than from near the center of gaze (Experiment 1), and target objects are more likely to be attended when they are on a collision path with the observer rather than on a near-miss path (Experiment 2). Both effects are exaggerated when search is performed in a large projection dome (Experiment 3). These findings suggest that the human visual system prioritizes events that are likely to require a behaviorally urgent response.     

Gaze cueing elicited by emotional faces is influenced by affective context

When we observe someone shift their gaze to a peripheral event or object, a corresponding shift in our own attention often follows. This social orienting response, joint attention, has been studied in the laboratory using the gaze cueing paradigm. Here, we investigate the combined influence of the emotional content displayed in two critical components of a joint attention episode: The facial expression of the cue face, and the affective nature of the to-be-localized target object. Hence, we presented participants with happy and disgusted faces as cueing stimuli, and neutral (Experiment 1), pleasant and unpleasant (Experiment 2) pictures as target stimuli. The findings demonstrate an effect of ‘emotional context’ confined to participants viewing pleasant pictures. Specifically, gaze cueing was boosted when the emotion of the gazing face (i.e., happy) matched that of the targets (pleasant). Demonstrating modulation by emotional context highlights the vital flexibility that a successful joint attention system requires in order to assist our navigation of the social world.     

Crossmodal spatial attention shift produced by centrally presented gaze cues1

Abstract: Despite previous failures to identify visual‐upon‐auditory spatial‐cuing effects, recent studies have demonstrated that the abrupt onset of a lateralized visual stimulus triggers a shift of spatial attention in response to auditory judgment. Nevertheless, whether a centrally presented visual stimulus orients auditory attention remained unclear. The present study investigated whether centrally presented gaze cues trigger a reflexive shift of attention in response to auditory judgment. Participants fixated on a schematic face in which the eyes looked left or right (the cue). A target sound was then presented to the left or right of the cue. Participants judged the direction of the target as quickly as possible. Even though participants were told that the gaze direction did not predict the direction of the target, the response time was significantly faster when the gaze was in the target direction than when it was in the non‐target direction. These findings provide initial evidence for visual‐upon‐auditory spatial‐cuing effects produced by centrally presented cues, suggesting that a reflexive crossmodal shift of attention does occur with a centrally presented visual stimulus.     

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 role of the oculomotor system in covert social attention

Observing a change in gaze direction triggers a reflexive shift of attention and appears to engage the eye-movement system. However, the functional relationship between social attention and this oculomotor activation is unclear. One extremely influential hypothesis is that the preparation of a saccadic eye movement is necessary and sufficient for a covert, reflexive shift of attention (the premotor theory of attention; Rizzolatti et al., 1994). Surprisingly, this theory has not been directly tested with respect to reflexive gaze cueing. In order to address this issue, gaze cueing, peripheral cueing, and arrow cueing were examined under conditions in which some stimuli appeared at locations that could not become the goal of a saccadic eye movement. It was observed that peripheral cues failed to elicit reflexive attentional orienting when targets appeared beyond the range of eye movements. Similarly, nonpredictive arrow cues were ineffective when targets could not become the goal of a saccade. In contrast, significant gaze-cueing effects were still observed when targets were beyond the range of eye movements. These data demonstrate that the mechanisms involved in gaze cueing are dissociated from those involved in exogenous orienting to peripheral or arrow cues. Furthermore, the findings suggest that, unlike peripheral cueing and reflexive arrow cueing, gaze cueing is independent of oculomotor control. We conclude that the premotor theory does not offer a compelling explanation for gaze cueing.     

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。     

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.     

The influence of a salience distinction between bilateral cues on the latency of target‐detection saccades

The spatial cueing paradigm, with saccades to targets as the method of response, was used to investigate the influence of two simultaneously presented cues on the orienting of visual attention. Participants were presented with bilateral cues, one of which was perceptually salient (high luminance) relative to the other. They participated in one of three conditions: in the ‘bright side likely’ condition targets usually (p = .8) appeared near the more salient cue; in the ‘dim side likely’ condition targets usually (p = .8) appeared near the less salient cue; and in the ‘neutral’ condition the arrangement of the cues was uninformative with respect to target location. Brief SOAs (0, 50, 100 and 150 ms) were employed. Rapid reflexive orienting to the more salient stimulus was observed in the neutral condition: saccadic latencies were faster when the target appeared near the bright cue, and this was found even across the two shortest SOAs. However, this reflexive orienting was suppressed in both the bright side likely and dim side likely conditions: the advantage observed at the bright cue's location across the two shortest SOAs in the neutral condition was significantly attenuated in the two contingent conditions. Results point to rapid expectancy‐based interference in the reflexive process of attention capture.     

Observation of another's action but not eye gaze triggers allocentric visual perspective

In the present paper, we investigated whether observation of bodily cues—that is, hand action and eye gaze—can modulate the onlooker's visual perspective taking. Participants were presented with scenes of an actor gazing at an object (or straight ahead) and grasping an object (or not) in a 2?×?2 factorial design and a control condition with no actor in the scene. In Experiment 1, two groups of subjects were explicitly required to judge the left/right location of the target from their own (egocentric group) or the actor's (allocentric group) point of view, whereas in Experiment 2 participants did not receive any instruction on the point of view to assume. In both experiments, allocentric coding (i.e., the actor's point of view) was triggered when the actor grasped the target, but not when he gazed towards it, or when he adopted a neutral posture. In Experiment 3, we demonstrate that the actor's gaze but not action affected participants' attention orienting. The different effects of others' grasping and eye gaze on observers' behaviour demonstrated that specific bodily cues convey distinctive information about other people's intentions.     

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.     

The positive and negative of human expertise in gaze perception

Judging where others look is crucial for many social and cognitive functions. Past accounts of gaze perception emphasize geometrical cues from the seen eye. Human eyes have a unique morphology, with a large white surround (sclera) to the dark iris that may have evolved to enhance gaze processing. Here we show that the contrast polarity of seen eyes has a powerful influence on gaze perception. Adult observers are highly inaccurate in judging gaze direction for images of human eyes with negative contrast polarity (regardless of whether the surrounding face is positive or negative), even though negative images of eyes preserve the geometric properties of positives that are judged accurately. The detrimental effect of negative contrast polarity is much larger for gaze perception than for other directional judgements (e.g. judging which way a head is turned). These results suggest an 'expert' system for gaze perception, which always treats the darker region of a seen eye as the part that does the looking.     

Orienting of attention via observed eye gaze is head-centred

Observing averted eye gaze results in the automatic allocation of attention to the gazed-at location. The role of the orientation of the face that produces the gaze cue was investigated. The eyes in the face could look left or right in a head-centred frame, but the face itself could be oriented 90 degrees clockwise or anticlockwise such that the eyes were gazing up or down. Significant cueing effects to targets presented to the left or right of the screen were found in these head orientation conditions. This suggests that attention was directed to the side to which the eyes would have been looking towards, had the face been presented upright. This finding provides evidence that head orientation can affect gaze following, even when the head orientation alone is not a social cue. It also shows that the mechanism responsible for the allocation of attention following a gaze cue can be influenced by intrinsic object-based (i.e. head-centred) properties of the task-irrelevant cue.     

The owl and the pussycat: Gaze cues and visuospatial orienting

Recent research has shown that nonpredictive gaze cues trigger reflexive shifts in attention toward the looked-at location. But just how generalizable is this spatial cuing effect? In particular, are people especially tuned to gaze cues provided by conspecifics, or can comparable shifts in visual attention be triggered by other cue providers and directional cues? To investigate these issues, we used a standard cuing paradigm to compare the attentional orienting produced by different cue providers (i.e., animate vs. inanimate) and directional cues (i.e., eyes vs. arrows). The results of three experiments revealed that attentional orienting was insensitive to both the identity of the cue provider and the nature of the triggering cue. However, compared with arrows, gaze cues prompted a general enhancement in the efficiency of processing operations. We consider the implications of these findings for accounts of reflexive visual orienting.     

Straight gaze facilitates face processing but does not cause involuntary attentional capture

This study aimed to investigate the conditions under which eyes with a straight gaze capture attention more than eyes with an averted gaze, a phenomenon called the stare-in-the-crowd effect. In Experiment 1, we measured attentional capture by distractor faces with either straight or averted gaze that were shown among faces with closed eyes. Gaze direction of the distractor face was irrelevant because participants searched for a tilted face and indicated its gender. The presence of the distractor face with open eyes resulted in slower reaction times, but gaze direction had no effect, suggesting that straight gaze does not result in more involuntary attentional capture than averted gaze. In three further experiments with the same stimuli, the gaze direction of the target, and not the distractor, was varied. Better performance with straight than averted gaze of the target face was observed when the gaze direction or gender of the target face had to be discriminated. However, no difference between straight and averted was observed when only the presence of a face with open eyes had to be detected. Thus, the stare-in-the crowd effect is only observed when eye gaze is selected as part of the target and only when features of the face have to be discriminated. Our findings suggest that preference for straight gaze bears on target-related processes rather than on attentional capture per se.