Elsevier

Neuropsychologia

Volume 46, Issue 9, July 2008, Pages 2423-2430
Neuropsychologia

Seeing direct and averted gaze activates the approach–avoidance motivational brain systems

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2008.02.029Get rights and content

Abstract

Gaze direction is known to be an important factor in regulating social interaction. Recent evidence suggests that direct and averted gaze can signal the sender's motivational tendencies of approach and avoidance, respectively. We aimed at determining whether seeing another person's direct vs. averted gaze has an influence on the observer's neural approach–avoidance responses. We also examined whether it would make a difference if the participants were looking at the face of a real person or a picture. Measurements of hemispheric asymmetry in the frontal electroencephalographic activity indicated that another person's direct gaze elicited a relative left-sided frontal EEG activation (indicative of a tendency to approach), whereas averted gaze activated right-sided asymmetry (indicative of avoidance). Skin conductance responses were larger to faces than to control objects and to direct relative to averted gaze, indicating that faces, in general, and faces with direct gaze, in particular, elicited more intense autonomic activation and strength of the motivational tendencies than did control stimuli. Gaze direction also influenced subjective ratings of emotional arousal and valence. However, all these effects were observed only when participants were facing a real person, not when looking at a picture of a face. This finding was suggested to be due to the motivational responses to gaze direction being activated in the context of enhanced self-awareness by the presence of another person. The present results, thus, provide direct evidence that eye contact and gaze aversion between two persons influence the neural mechanisms regulating basic motivational–emotional responses and differentially activate the motivational approach–avoidance brain systems.

Section snippets

Participants

The participants were 20 adults (12 females, mean age = 24.8 years, range 20–40 years) with normal or corrected-to-normal vision. An additional five participants were tested but excluded due to excessive artifacts (n = 2) or technical error (n = 3) in the electroencephalography. In one of the remaining 20 participants, the skin conductance recording was not successful due to technical problems. Thus, the skin conductance responses were analyzed from 19 participants. Informed, written consent was

Results

The mean EEG asymmetry scores based on the measurements from a frontally located pair of electrodes are presented in Fig. 2. These data were first analyzed with a three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA, within-subjects) having stimulus (face vs. control object), direction (direct vs. averted), and presentation mode (live vs. picture) as factors. The ANOVA indicated the main effect of stimulus, F(1, 19) = 5.2, p < .05, ηp2=.21, as well as stimulus × direction, F(1, 19) = 5.6, p < .05, ηp2=.23, and stimulus ×

Discussion

In the present study, we investigated (a) whether seeing another person's direct vs. averted gaze influences the basic motivational–emotional responses of approach and avoidance and (b) whether it would make a difference to these responses if the participants were looking at the face of a real person or a picture. The pictures were presented on a computer monitor and the live stimuli were presented through a liquid crystal shutter. As dependent variables we measured power in the alpha band EEG

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the NEURO-programme of the Academy of Finland (project no. 1111850). We would like to express our gratitude to Riitta Hari, Risto Näätänen, David Perrett, and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the previous versions of the manuscript.

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