Abstract
Manual response times to peripherally presented targets have been reported to be greater in the presence of task-irrelevant pictorial faces at fixation which establish an eye contact with the observer. This effect is interpreted as evidence that direct-gaze faces hold attention. In three experiments, we investigated whether this attention-holding effect is also reflected in saccadic response times. Participants were asked to make a saccade towards a symbolic target that could appear rightwards or leftwards, in the presence of a task-irrelevant centrally placed face with either direct gaze or closed eyes. Unexpectedly, saccadic response times did not show any consistent response pattern as a function of whether the faces were presented with direct gaze vs. closed eyes. Interestingly, saccadic peak velocities were found to be lower in the presence of faces with direct gaze rather than closed eyes (Experiment 1). This effect emerged even in the presence of non-human primate faces (Experiment 2), and no differences between direct gaze and closed eyes emerged when the faces were presented inverted rather than upright (Experiment 3). Overall, these findings suggest that eye contact can have an impact on the saccadic generation system.
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Notes
For completeness, Bonferroni-corrected t tests confirmed that no significant differences emerged between open vs. closed eyes at each SOA (ts < 1.2, ps > .755). Bayes Factor scores (BF10) were also computed through JASP software (JASP Team 2017), in order to provide further support to this pattern. The results indicated that H1 (a difference between open and closed eyes) was never preferable over H0 (no difference between open and closed eyes) in any of these comparisons (all BF10 < 1).
For completeness, we report here that the main effect of SOA approached significance, F(1, 24) = 4.081, p = .055, η p 2 = .145, in line with a foreperiod effect.
Even if the eyes × SOA × species interaction was non-significant, F(1, 24) = 2.306, p = .142, n 2 p = .088, for completeness Bonferroni-corrected t tests were also carried out. The only significant results emerged at the 100-ms SOA, indicating that peak velocity was smaller in the presence of a face with open eyes than closed eyes, for both humans, t(24) = 4.282, p = .001, d = .858, BF10 = 116.893, and non-human primate faces, t(24) = 3.057, p = .02, d = .611, BF10 = 8.042. No other significant results emerged (ts < 1, ps > .999, BF10s < 1; see also Fig. 3).
For completeness, t tests were performed between open and closed eyes for each face orientation and at each SOA. No significant results emerged (ts < 1.049, ps > .304, BF10s < 1). Because we hypothesized a null effect in the case of inverted faces, no Bonferroni correction was applied as this would have resulted in an increased likelihood of detecting exactly such null effect. In so doing, we followed a more conservative approach.
For completeness, we report here that the main effect of eyes approached significance, F(1, 25) = 3.374, p = .078, \(\eta^{2}_{p}\) = .119, suggesting a trend towards lower velocities in the presence of faces with open eyes than closed eyes. The main effect of face orientation also approached significance, F(1, 25) = 3.037, p = .094, \(\eta^{2}_{p}\) = .108, suggesting a trend towards lower velocities in the presence of upright faces than inverted faces.
Even if the eyes × SOA × face orientation interaction was non-significant, F(1, 25) = 2.161, p = .154, \(\eta^{2}_{p}\) = .080, for completeness t tests were conducted. The only significant result emerged at the 100-ms SOA for upright faces, t(25) = 2.451, p = .022, d = .481, BF10 = 2.490, indicating that peak velocity was smaller in the presence of a face with open eyes than closed eyes. No other comparisons were significant (ts < 1, ps > .475, BF10s < 1; see also Fig. 4).
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Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Marta Pugliese for her assistance during data collection and to two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on a previous version of this paper.
This study was funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, University, and Research (Futuro in Ricerca 2012, grant number RBFR12F0BD to Giovanni Galfano) and by the University of Padova (Bando Giovani Ricercatori 2015 “Assegno Senior”, grant number GRIC15QDDH to Mario Dalmaso).
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Dalmaso, M., Castelli, L. & Galfano, G. Attention holding elicited by direct-gaze faces is reflected in saccadic peak velocity. Exp Brain Res 235, 3319–3332 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-017-5059-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-017-5059-4