TITLE:
Effect of Pre-Presentation of a Frontal Face on the Shift of Visual Attention Induced by Averted Gaze
AUTHORS:
Masaki Ogawa, Takeharu Seno, Hiroyuki Ito, Shoji Sunaga
KEYWORDS:
Visual Attention, Gaze Direction, Reaction Time, Face Processing
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.5 No.5,
April
23,
2014
ABSTRACT: Visual
attention is induced to shift to another person’s gaze direction. We employed a
two-frame stimulus presentation procedure to investigate the effect of
pre-presentation of a frontal face on this attentional shift. The first frame
showed a frontal-gaze face, while the second frame showed an averted-gaze face.
Reaction time (RT) to a target suddenly appearing to the left or right of the
averted face image was measured. The results showed that an averted face with
averted gaze induced an attentional shift in the gaze direction, while
presentation of a frontal-gaze face as the first-frame stimulus resulted in two
different effects on RTs. The RTs were generally shorter when the frontal face
was presented irrespective of the gaze-target directional congruency, while prepresenting
the frontal face for 300 ms elongated the RTs. The former might arise from a
priming effect and the latter might arise from re-processing of the face from
which gaze direction is estimated. We concluded that the first-frame stimulus
could facilitate the general response to the target, but could not facilitate
an attentional shift, in spite of the existence of an apparent motion cue from
the head motion.