Watching Eyes effects: When others meet the self

Causal Roles of Ventral and Dorsal Neural Systems for Automatic and Control Self-Reference Processing: A Function Lesion Mapping Study

Background: Humans perceive and interpret the world through the lens of self-reference processes, typically facilitating enhanced performance for the task at hand. However, this research has predominantly emphasized the automatic facet of self-reference processing, overlooking how it interacts with control processes affecting everyday situations. Methods: We investigated this relationship between automatic and control self-reference processing in neuropsychological patients performing self-face perception tasks and the Birmingham frontal task measuring executive functions. Results: Principal component analysis across tasks revealed two components: one loaded on familiarity/orientation judgments reflecting automatic self-reference processing, and the other linked to the cross task and executive function indicating control processing requirements. Voxel-based morphometry and track-wise lesion-mapping analyses showed that impairments in automatic self-reference were associated with reduced grey matter in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and right inferior temporal gyrus, and white matter damage in the right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus. Deficits in executive control were linked to reduced grey matter in the bilateral inferior parietal lobule and left anterior insula, and white matter disconnections in the left superior longitudinal fasciculus and arcuate fasciculus. Conclusions: The causal evidence suggests that automatic and control facets of self-reference processes are subserved by distinct yet integrated ventral prefrontal-temporal and dorsal frontal-parietal networks, respectively.

Autistic young people adaptively use gaze to facilitate joint attention during multi-gestural dyadic interactions

LAY ABSTRACT

Autistic people have been said to have 'problems' with joint attention, that is, looking where someone else is looking. Past studies of joint attention have used tasks that require autistic people to continuously look at and respond to eye-gaze cues. But joint attention can also be done using other social cues, like pointing. This study looked at whether autistic and non-autistic young people use another person's eye gaze during joint attention in a task that did not require them to look at their partner's face. In the task, each participant worked together with their partner to find a computer-generated object in virtual reality. Sometimes the participant had to help guide their partner to the object, and other times, they followed their partner's lead. Participants were told to point to guide one another but were not told to use eye gaze. Both autistic and non-autistic participants often looked at their partner's face during joint attention interactions and were faster to respond to their partner's hand-pointing when the partner also looked at the object before pointing. This shows that autistic people can and do use information from another person's eyes, even when they don't have to. It is possible that, by not forcing autistic young people to look at their partner's face and eyes, they were better able to gather information from their partner's face when needed, without being overwhelmed. This shows how important it is to design tasks that provide autistic people with opportunities to show what they can do.

Attentional cueing: Gaze is harder to override than arrows

Gaze is an important and potent social cue to direct others' attention towards specific locations. However, in many situations, directional symbols, like arrows, fulfill a similar purpose. Motivated by the overarching question how artificial systems can effectively communicate directional information, we conducted two cueing experiments. In both experiments, participants were asked to identify peripheral targets appearing on the screen and respond to them as quickly as possible by a button press. Prior to the appearance of the target, a cue was presented in the center of the screen. In Experiment 1, cues were either faces or arrows that gazed or pointed in one direction, but were non-predictive of the target location. Consistent with earlier studies, we found a reaction time benefit for the side the arrow or the gaze was directed to. Extending beyond earlier research, we found that this effect was indistinguishable between the vertical and the horizontal axis and between faces and arrows. In Experiment 2, we used 100% "counter-predictive" cues; that is, the target always occurred on the side opposite to the direction of gaze or arrow. With cues without inherent directional meaning (color), we controlled for general learning effects. Despite the close quantitative match between non-predictive gaze and non-predictive arrow cues observed in Experiment 1, the reaction-time benefit for counter-predictive arrows over neutral cues is more robust than the corresponding benefit for counter-predictive gaze. This suggests that-if matched for efficacy towards their inherent direction-gaze cues are harder to override or reinterpret than arrows. This difference can be of practical relevance, for example, when designing cues in the context of human-machine interaction.

Depressive symptoms and visual attention to others' eyes in healthy individuals

BACKGROUND

Eye contact is a fundamental part of social interaction. In clinical studies, it has been observed that patients suffering from depression make less eye contact during interviews than healthy individuals, which could be a factor contributing to their social functioning impairments. Similarly, results from mood induction studies with healthy persons indicate that attention to the eyes diminishes as a function of sad mood. The present screen-based eye-tracking study examined whether depressive symptoms in healthy individuals are associated with reduced visual attention to other persons' direct gaze during free viewing.

METHODS

Gaze behavior of 44 individuals with depressive symptoms and 49 individuals with no depressive symptoms was analyzed in a free viewing task. Grouping was based on the Beck Depression Inventory using the cut-off proposed by Hautzinger et al. (2006). Participants saw pairs of faces with direct gaze showing emotional or neutral expressions. One-half of the face pairs was shown without face masks, whereas the other half was presented with face masks. Participants' dwell times and first fixation durations were analyzed.

RESULTS

In case of unmasked facial expressions, participants with depressive symptoms looked shorter at the eyes compared to individuals without symptoms across all expression conditions. No group difference in first fixation duration on the eyes of masked and unmasked faces was observed. Individuals with depressive symptoms dwelled longer on the mouth region of unmasked faces. For masked faces, no significant group differences in dwell time on the eyes were found. Moreover, when specifically examining dwell time on the eyes of faces with an emotional expression there were also no significant differences between groups. Overall, participants gazed significantly longer at the eyes in masked compared to unmasked faces.

CONCLUSIONS

For faces without mask, our results suggest that depressiveness in healthy individuals goes along with less visual attention to other persons' eyes but not with less visual attention to others' faces. When factors come into play that generally amplify the attention directed to the eyes such as face masks or emotions then no relationship between depressiveness and visual attention to the eyes can be established.

An investigation of the modulatory effects of empathic and autistic traits on emotional and facial motor responses during live social interactions

A close relationship between emotional contagion and spontaneous facial mimicry has been theoretically proposed and is supported by empirical data. Facial expressions are essential in terms of both emotional and motor synchrony. Previous studies have demonstrated that trait emotional empathy enhanced spontaneous facial mimicry, but the relationship between autistic traits and spontaneous mimicry remained controversial. Moreover, previous studies presented faces that were static or videotaped, which may lack the "liveliness" of real-life social interactions. We addressed this limitation by using an image relay system to present live performances and pre-recorded videos of smiling or frowning dynamic facial expressions to 94 healthy female participants. We assessed their subjective experiential valence and arousal ratings to infer the amplitude of emotional contagion. We measured the electromyographic activities of the zygomaticus major and corrugator supercilii muscles to estimate spontaneous facial mimicry. Individual differences measures included trait emotional empathy (empathic concern) and the autism-spectrum quotient. We did not find that live performances enhanced the modulatory effect of trait differences on emotional contagion or spontaneous facial mimicry. However, we found that a high trait empathic concern was associated with stronger emotional contagion and corrugator mimicry. We found no two-way interaction between the autism spectrum quotient and emotional condition, suggesting that autistic traits did not modulate emotional contagion or spontaneous facial mimicry. Our findings imply that previous findings regarding the relationship between emotional empathy and emotional contagion/spontaneous facial mimicry using videos and photos could be generalized to real-life interactions.

Autonomic and facial electromyographic responses to watching eyes

We measured participants' psychophysiological responses and gaze behavior while viewing a stimulus person's direct and averted gaze in three different conditions manipulating the participants' experience of being watched. The results showed that skin conductance responses and heart rate deceleration responses were greater to direct than averted gaze only in the condition in which the participants had the experience of being watched by the other individual. In contrast, gaze direction had no effects on these responses when the participants were manipulated to believe that the other individual could not watch them or when the stimulus person was presented in a pre-recorded video. Importantly, the eye tracking measures showed no differences in participants' looking behavior between these stimulus presentation conditions. The results of facial electromyography responses suggested that direct gaze elicited greater zygomatic and periocular responses than averted gaze did, independent of the presentation condition. It was concluded that the affective arousal and attention-orienting indexing autonomic responses to eye contact are driven by the experience of being watched. In contrast, the facial responses seem to reflect automatized affiliative responses which can be elicited even in conditions in which seeing another's direct gaze does not signal that the self is being watched.

Looking into troubled waters: Childhood emotional maltreatment modulates neural responses to prolonged gazing into one's own, but not others', eyes

One of the most prevalent nonverbal, social phenomena known to automatically elicit self- and other-referential processes is eye contact. By its negative effects on the perception of social safety and views about the self and others, childhood emotional maltreatment (CEM) may fundamentally affect these processes. To investigate whether the socioaffective consequences of CEM may become visible in response to (prolonged) eye gaze, 79 adult participants (mean [M]age = 49.87, standard deviation [SD]age = 4.62) viewed videos with direct and averted gaze of an unfamiliar other and themselves while we recorded self-reported mood, eye movements using eye-tracking, and markers of neural activity using fMRI. Participants who reported higher levels of CEM exhibited increased activity in ventromedial prefrontal cortex to one's own, but not to others', direct gaze. Furthermore, in contrast to those who reported fewer of such experiences, they did not report a better mood in response to a direct gaze of self and others, despite equivalent amounts of time spent looking into their own and other peoples' eyes. The fact that CEM is associated with enhanced neural activation in a brain area that is crucially involved in self-referential processing (i.e., vmPFC) in response to one's own direct gaze is in line with the chronic negative impact of CEM on a person's self-views. Interventions that directly focus on targeting maladaptive self-views elicited during eye gaze to self may be clinically useful.

Electromyographic Validation of Spontaneous Facial Mimicry Detection Using Automated Facial Action Coding

Although electromyography (EMG) remains the standard, researchers have begun using automated facial action coding system (FACS) software to evaluate spontaneous facial mimicry despite the lack of evidence of its validity. Using the facial EMG of the zygomaticus major (ZM) as a standard, we confirmed the detection of spontaneous facial mimicry in action unit 12 (AU12, lip corner puller) via an automated FACS. Participants were alternately presented with real-time model performance and prerecorded videos of dynamic facial expressions, while simultaneous ZM signal and frontal facial videos were acquired. Facial videos were estimated for AU12 using FaceReader, Py-Feat, and OpenFace. The automated FACS is less sensitive and less accurate than facial EMG, but AU12 mimicking responses were significantly correlated with ZM responses. All three software programs detected enhanced facial mimicry by live performances. The AU12 time series showed a roughly 100 to 300 ms latency relative to the ZM. Our results suggested that while the automated FACS could not replace facial EMG in mimicry detection, it could serve a purpose for large effect sizes. Researchers should be cautious with the automated FACS outputs, especially when studying clinical populations. In addition, developers should consider the EMG validation of AU estimation as a benchmark.

Neurotypical, but not autistic, adults might experience distress when looking at someone avoiding eye contact: A live face-to-face paradigm

LAY ABSTRACT

What is already known about the topic?Autistics are usually reported to share less eye contact than neurotypicals with their interlocutors. However, the reason why autistics might pay less attention to eyes looking at them is still unknown: some autistics express being hyper-aroused by this eye contact, while some eye-tracking studies suggest that eye contact is associated with hypo-arousal in autism.What this paper adds?This study is based on a highly controlled live face-to-face paradigm, combining a wearable eye-tracker (to study eye behaviours) with electrodermal activity sensors (to assess potential stress). We draw a nuanced picture of social attention in autism, as our autistic participants did not differ from our neurotypical group in their eye behaviours nor their skin conductance responses. However, we found that neurotypicals, compared to autistics, seemed to be much more distressed when their interlocutor did not gaze at them during the experiment.Implications for practice, research or policy:Our study encourages to consider social interaction difficulties in autism as a relational issue, instead as an individual deficit. This step might be first taken in research, by implementing paradigms sensitive to the experimenter's role and attitude.

Prioritized Identification of Fearful Eyes during the Attentional Blink Is Not Automatic

The eye region conveys considerable information regarding an individual's emotions, motivations, and intentions during interpersonal communication. Evidence suggests that the eye regions of an individual expressing emotions can capture attention more rapidly than the eye regions of an individual in a neutral affective state. However, how attentional resources affect the processing of emotions conveyed by the eye regions remains unclear. Accordingly, the present study employed a dual-target rapid serial visual presentation task: happy, neutral, or fearful eye regions were presented as the second target, with a temporal lag between two targets of 232 or 696 ms. Participants completed two tasks successively: Task 1 was to identify which species the upright eye region they had seen belonged to, and Task 2 was to identify what emotion was conveyed in the upright eye region. The behavioral results showed that the accuracy for fearful eye regions was lower than that for neutral eye regions under the condition of limited attentional resources; however, accuracy differences across the three types of eye regions did not reach significance under the condition of adequate attentional resources. These findings indicate that preferential processing of fearful expressions is not automatic but is modulated by available attentional resources.

Examination of gaze behaviour in social anxiety disorder using a virtual reality eye-tracking paradigm: protocol for a casecontrol study

INTRODUCTION

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) has an early onset, a high lifetime prevalence, and may be a risk factor for developing other mental disorders. Gaze behaviour is considered an aberrant feature of SAD. Eye-tracking, a novel technology device, enables recording eye movements in real time, making it a direct and objective measure of gaze behaviour. Virtual reality (VR) is a promising tool for assessment and diagnostic purposes. Developing an objective screening tool based on examination of gaze behaviour in SAD may potentially aid early detection. The objective of this current study is, therefore to examine gaze behaviour in SAD utilising VR.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS

A case-control study design is employed in which a clinical sample of 29 individuals with SAD will be compared with a matched healthy control group of 29 individuals. In the VR-based eye-tracking paradigm, participants will be presented to stimuli consisting of high-res 360° 3D stereoscopic videos of three social-evaluative tasks designed to elicit social anxiety. The study will investigate between-group gaze behaviour differences during stimuli presentation.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION

The study has been approved by the National Committee on Health Research Ethics for the Capital Region of Denmark (H-22041443). The study has been preregistered on OSF registries: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/XCTAKAll participants will be provided with written and oral information. Informed consent is required for all the participants. Participation is voluntarily, and the participants can at any time terminate their participation without any consequences. Study results; positive, negative or inconclusive will be published in relevant scientific journals.

Effects of interpreting a dynamic geometric cue as gaze on attention allocation

Gaze is a powerful cue for directing attention. We investigate the interpretation of an abstract figure as gaze modulates its efficacy as an attentional cue. In each trial, two vertical lines on a central disk moved to one side (left or right). Independent of this "feature-cued" side, a target (black disk) subsequently appeared on one side. After 300 trials (phase 1), participants watched a video of a human avatar walking away. For one group, the avatar wore a helmet that visually matched the central disk and looked at black disks to either side. The other group's video was unrelated to the cueing task. After another 300 trials (phase 2), videos were swapped between groups; 300 further trials (phase 3) followed. In all phases, participants responded more quickly for targets appearing on the feature-cued side. There was a significant interaction between group and phase for reaction times: In phase 3, the group who had just watched the avatar with the helmet had a reduced advantage to the feature-cued side. Hence, interpreting the disk as a turning head seen from behind counteracts the cueing by the motion of the disk. This suggests that the mere perceptual interpretation of an abstract stimulus as gaze yields social cueing effects.

The impact of facial expression and communicative gaze of a humanoid robot on individual Sense of Agency

Sense of Agency (SoA) is the feeling of control over one's actions and their outcomes. A well-established implicit measure of SoA is the temporal interval estimation paradigm, in which participants estimate the time interval between a voluntary action and its sensory consequence. In the present study, we aimed to investigate whether the valence of action outcome modulated implicit SoA. The valence was manipulated through interaction partner's (i) positive/negative facial expression, or (ii) type of gaze (gaze contact or averted gaze). The interaction partner was the humanoid robot iCub. In Experiment 1, participants estimated the time interval between the onset of their action (head movement towards the robot), and the robot's facial expression (happy vs. sad face). Experiment 2 was identical, but the outcome of participants' action was the type of robot's gaze (gaze contact vs. averted). In Experiment 3, we assessed-in a within-subject design-the combined effect of robot's type of facial expression and type of gaze. Results showed that, while the robot's facial expression did not affect participants' SoA (Experiment 1), the type of gaze affected SoA in both Experiment 2 and Experiment 3. Overall, our findings showed that the robot's gaze is a more potent factor than facial expression in modulating participants' implicit SoA.

Research on social attention in autism and the challenges of the research domain criteria (RDoC) framework

The fuzzy nature of categories of psychopathology, such as autism, leads to significant research challenges. Alternatively, focusing research on the study of a common set of important and well-defined psychological constructs across psychiatric conditions may make the fundamental etiological processes of psychopathology easier to discern and treat (Cuthbert, 2022). The development of the research domain criteria (RDoC) framework is designed to guide this new research approach (Insel et al., 2010). However, progress in research may be expected to continually refine and reorganize the understanding of the specifics of these mental processes (Cuthbert & Insel, 2013). Moreover, knowledge gleaned from the study of both normative and atypical development can be mutually informative in the evolution of our understanding of these fundamental processes. A case in point is the study of social attention. This Autism 101 commentary provides an educational summary of research over the last few decades indicates that social attention is major construct in the study of human social-cognitive development, autism and other forms of psychopathology. The commentary also describes how this research can inform the Social Process dimension of the RDoC framework.

Skin conductance, facial EMG, and heart rate responses in multi-person gaze interactions

Previous literature has reported enhanced affective and attentional responses to faces with a direct vs. averted gaze. Typically, in these studies, only single faces were presented. However, daily social encounters often involve interaction with more than just one person. By employing an experimental set-up in which the participants believed they were interacting with two other persons, the present study, for the first time, investigated participants' skin conductance, facial electromyographic (EMG), and heart rate deceleration responses in multi-person eye contact situations. Responses were measured in two different social contexts; i) when the participants observed eye contact between two other persons ('vicarious eye contact effect'), and ii) when the participants themselves received direct gaze either from one or two persons. The results showed that the skin conductance, facial EMG, and heart rate deceleration responses elicited by observing two other persons making eye contact did not differ from those elicited by observing one person looking at the other while the other person was not reciprocating with their gaze. As a novel finding, the results showed that receiving direct gaze from two persons elicited greater affective arousal and zygomatic EMG, but smaller heart rate deceleration responses in participants than receiving direct gaze from one person only. The findings are thoroughly discussed and it is concluded that physiological responses in multi-person interaction contexts are influenced by many social effects between the interactors and can be markedly different from those observed in two-person interactions.

The Associations Between Attitudes Toward Interpersonal Affective Touch, Negative Cognitions and Social Anxiety: A Pilot Study

Objective: Affectionate touch promotes psychological well-being likely through inducing cognitive and neurobiological changes, which implies the inverse association of affectionate touch to negative cognitive and psychosocial outcomes. Our aim was to explore relationships between attitudes toward interpersonal touch and social anxiety through fear of negative evaluation and self-critical rumination as mediating variables.Method: Data from 250 participants (69.6% females, n = 174) ranging in age from 18 to 65 years were collected through self-report inventories assessing attitudes toward physical touch from friends and family, nonromantic intimate person and unfamiliar person, fear of negative evaluation, self-critical rumination, and social anxiety. A moderated-mediation analysis was conducted. Results: No direct link was seen between attitudes toward friends and family touch experiences and social anxiety in both genders, but mediation through fear of negative evaluation was significant (p < .05). Attitudes toward nonromantic intimate touch were related to social anxiety only in females and only indirectly through self-critical rumination (p < .05). In both males and females, attitudes toward touch from unfamiliar persons were linked to social anxiety directly (p < .05) but indirect paths through fear of negative evaluation (p < .05) and self-critical rumination were seen only in females (p < .05). Conclusions: Findings indicate that attitudes toward interpersonal affectionate touch may be predictive of social anxiety and the negative cognitions associated with it, extending previous findings on social pain and attesting to the potential clinical utility of touch-based interventions for social anxiety.

The Unique Cost of Human Eye Gaze in Cognitive Control: Being Human-Specific and Body-Related?

This study investigated the eye gaze cost in cognitive control and whether it is human-specific and body-related. In Experiment 1, we explored whether there was a cost of human eye gaze in cognitive control and extended it by focusing on the role of emotion in the cost. Stroop effect was found to be larger in eye-gaze condition than vertical grating condition, and to be comparable across positive, negative, and neutral trials. In Experiment 2, we explored whether the eye gaze cost in cognitive control was limited to human eyes. No larger Stroop effect was found in feline eye-gaze condition, neither the modulating role of emotion. In Experiment 3, we explored whether the mouth could elicit a cost in Stroop effect. Stroop effect was not significantly larger in mouth condition compared to vertical grating condition, nor across positive, negative, and neutral conditions. The results suggest that: (1) There is a robust cost of eye gaze in cognitive control; (2) Such eye-gaze cost was specific to human eyes but not to animal eyes; (3) Only human eyes could have such eye-gaze costs but not human mouth. This study supported the notion that presentation of social cues, such as human eyes, could influence attentional processing, and provided preliminary evidence that the human eye plays an important role in cognitive processing.

Enhanced Mirror Neuron Network Activity and Effective Connectivity during Live Interaction Among Female Subjects

Facial expressions are indispensable in daily human communication. Previous neuroimaging studies investigating facial expression processing have presented pre-recorded stimuli and lacked live face-to-face interaction. Our paradigm alternated between presentations of real-time model performance and pre-recorded videos of dynamic facial expressions to participants. Simultaneous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and facial electromyography activity recordings, as well as post-scan valence and arousal ratings were acquired from 44 female participants. Live facial expressions enhanced the subjective valence and arousal ratings as well as facial muscular responses. Live performances showed greater engagement of the right posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), right amygdala and right fusiform gyrus, and modulated the effective connectivity within the right mirror neuron system (IFG, pSTS, and right inferior parietal lobule). A support vector machine algorithm could classify multivoxel activation patterns in brain regions involved in dynamic facial expression processing in the mentalizing networks (anterior and posterior cingulate cortex). These results indicate that live social interaction modulates the activity and connectivity of the right mirror neuron system and enhances spontaneous mimicry, further facilitating emotional contagion.

Ghost on the Windshield: Employing a Virtual Human Character to Communicate Pedestrian Acknowledgement and Vehicle Intention

Pedestrians base their street-crossing decisions on vehicle-centric as well as driver-centric cues. In the future, however, drivers of autonomous vehicles will be preoccupied with non-driving related activities and will thus be unable to provide pedestrians with relevant communicative cues. External human–machine interfaces (eHMIs) hold promise for filling the expected communication gap by providing information about a vehicle’s situational awareness and intention. In this paper, we present an eHMI concept that employs a virtual human character (VHC) to communicate pedestrian acknowledgement and vehicle intention (non-yielding; cruising; yielding). Pedestrian acknowledgement is communicated via gaze direction while vehicle intention is communicated via facial expression. The effectiveness of the proposed anthropomorphic eHMI concept was evaluated in the context of a monitor-based laboratory experiment where the participants performed a crossing intention task (self-paced, two-alternative forced choice) and their accuracy in making appropriate street-crossing decisions was measured. In each trial, they were first presented with a 3D animated sequence of a VHC (male; female) that either looked directly at them or clearly to their right while producing either an emotional (smile; angry expression; surprised expression), a conversational (nod; head shake), or a neutral (neutral expression; cheek puff) facial expression. Then, the participants were asked to imagine they were pedestrians intending to cross a one-way street at a random uncontrolled location when they saw an autonomous vehicle equipped with the eHMI approaching from the right and indicate via mouse click whether they would cross the street in front of the oncoming vehicle or not. An implementation of the proposed concept where non-yielding intention is communicated via the VHC producing either an angry expression, a surprised expression, or a head shake; cruising intention is communicated via the VHC puffing its cheeks; and yielding intention is communicated via the VHC nodding, was shown to be highly effective in ensuring the safety of a single pedestrian or even two co-located pedestrians without compromising traffic flow in either case. The implications for the development of intuitive, culture-transcending eHMIs that can support multiple pedestrians in parallel are discussed.

Effect of mass sports activity on prosocial behavior: A sequential mediation model of flow trait and subjective wellbeing

Objectives

Participation in mass sports is one of the most efficient strategies for people to attain physical and mental health in China. Prosocial behavior has a positive effect on social development. This study developed a conceptual model with mass sports activity as the independent variable, prosocial behavior as the dependent variable, and flow trait and subjective wellbeing as the mediating variables.

Methods

Participants (N = 351) completed an online survey. Mass sports activity, flow trait, subjective wellbeing, and prosocial behavior were measured using the physical activity rank scale-3 (PARS-3), short dispositional flow scale (SDFS), index of wellbeing (IWB), and prosocial tendencies measure (PTM), respectively. Descriptive statistics compared differences between sports population (PARS-3, ≥ 36) and non-sports population (PARS-3, <36). Mediation effect was analyzed using the PROCESS (Template, Model 6).

Results

Sports population scored significantly higher (all P ≤ 0.05) on SDFS, IWB, and PTM than non-sports population. Participation in mass sports stimulated flow trait and thus improved prosocial behavior, with a mediation effect value of 0.061 (95% CI, 0.028–0.104), which accounted for 30.18% of the total effect. Participation in mass sports enhanced subjective wellbeing and thus improved prosocial behavior, with a mediation effect value of 0.044 (95% CI, 0.007–0.090), which accounted for 21.96% of the total effect. Flow trait and subjective wellbeing mediated the relationship between mass sports activity and prosocial behavior in a sequential manner, with a mediation effect value of 0.059 (95% CI, 0.035–0.090), which accounted for 29.23% of the total effect.

Conclusion

The preliminary results of the mediation model validated the hypothesized sequential links between mass sports activity, flow trait, subjective wellbeing, and prosocial behavior. Greater participation in mass sports increases the likelihood of prosocial behavior.

Psychosocial Dimensions of Recycling in Small Island: Psycho-Environmental Diagnostic and Evidence-Based Intervention in Martinique

Recycling is socially responsible behavior. Moreover, it is also a complex behavior. It benefits society in the long term but involves a personal cost and does not benefit the individual directly. In the specific context of small island, we conducted a two-step research action to promote recycling among households located in the north of Martinique, a west indies French island. Based on the psychosocial engineering model, the first step was to identify the determinants of recycling in this specific island context. In a psycho-environmental diagnostic, we included variables already identified to predict waste sorting, such as the TPB variables, as well as other context-specific variables, such as group identification, environmental identity, place identity, sense of community, perceived efficacy of one’s action, as predictors of the intention to recycle. Based on psychological distance and its temporal dimension, we also distinguished between the intention to recycle today (proximal intention) and the intention to recycle in 1 month (distal intention). The results show that the predictors of recycling differ according to the temporal distance. The proximal intention was predicted by personal variables whereas distal intention was predicted by social variables. The second step was to design and to implement an evidence-based intervention to increase the quality of recycling. At Time 1, the garbage cans of 193 households were collected and characterized. At Time 2, the households were visited at home by an officer, who used one of the four communication scripts built on the basis of the results of the psycho-environmental diagnostic. At Time 3, the garbage cans were collected and characterized again. We observe an improvement in sorting in the condition where the TBP dimensions are activated: attitude, social norm, and controllability. Our results highlight the importance of taking into account the temporality of change, especially when the behavior to be changed is complex. They also show an interest in relying on a psycho-environmental diagnosis, taking into account the context of insertion of the target behavior.

The Quality of Everyday Eye Contact in Williams Syndrome: Insights From Cross-Syndrome Comparisons

Past research shows that individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) have heightened and prolonged eye contact. Using parent report measures, we examined not only the presence of eye contact but also its qualitative features. Study 1 included individuals with WS (n = 22, ages 6.0-36.3). Study 2 included children with different neurodevelopmental (ND) conditions (WS, autism spectrum condition, fragile X syndrome, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) and children with neurotypical development (NT; n = 262, ages 4.0-17.11). Unusual eye contact features, including staring, were found in approximately half of the WS samples. However, other features such as brief glances were frequently found in WS and in all ND conditions, but not NT. Future research in ND conditions should focus on qualitative as well as quantitative features of eye contact.

Social signalling as a framework for second-person neuroscience

Despite the recent increase in second-person neuroscience research, it is still hard to understand which neurocognitive mechanisms underlie real-time social behaviours. Here, we propose that social signalling can help us understand social interactions both at the single- and two-brain level in terms of social signal exchanges between senders and receivers. First, we show how subtle manipulations of being watched provide an important tool to dissect meaningful social signals. We then focus on how social signalling can help us build testable hypotheses for second-person neuroscience with the example of imitation and gaze behaviour. Finally, we suggest that linking neural activity to specific social signals will be key to fully understand the neurocognitive systems engaged during face-to-face interactions.

Eye Contact in Video Communication: Experiences of Co-creating Relationships

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, increased number of persons have been forced to limit their interactions with friends and families to contact via video, which excludes eye-contact. The aim of this study was to examine individuals’ experiences of the difference between forced skewed visuality and the ability for eye-contact in conversations. Two custom-made units allowed 15 participants interacting in dyads to alternate between being able to make eye contact and having that ability removed through skewed visuality. Participants reported their experiences in semi-structured interviews. Data analyzed with qualitative content analysis resulted in three themes: Shared eye contact allows us to create our relationship together; With eye contact, we adjust to each other to feel more connected and less intimidated; and We get more self-conscious when the visuality is skewed or shifting. The results imply that skewed visuality as forced lack of eye-contact in video conversations effects embodied non-verbal processes related to sense of connectedness and participatory sensemaking, creating a sense of both emotional and physical distance, as well as heightening self-awareness about the need of actively regulating the other. We argue that this is one of the ways to understand the impact of moving interactions to online communication.

The Influence of Face Gaze by Physicians on Patient Trust: an Observational Study

BACKGROUND

Physicians' gaze towards their patients may affect patients' trust in them. This is especially relevant considering recent developments, including the increasing use of Electronic Health Records, which affect physicians' gaze behavior. Moreover, socially anxious patients' trust in particular may be affected by the gaze of the physician.

OBJECTIVE

We aimed to evaluate if physicians' gaze towards the face of their patient influenced patient trust and to assess if this relation was stronger for socially anxious patients. We furthermore explored the relation between physicians' gaze and patients' perception of physician empathy and patients' distress.

DESIGN

This was an observational study using eye-tracking glasses and questionnaires.

PARTICIPANTS

One hundred patients and 16 residents, who had not met before, participated at an internal medicine out-patient clinic.

MEASURES

Physicians wore eye-tracking glasses during medical consultations to assess their gaze towards patients' faces. Questionnaires were used to assess patient outcomes. Multilevel analyses were conducted to assess the relation between physicians' relative face gaze time and trust, while correcting for patient background characteristics, and including social anxiety as a moderator. Analyses were then repeated with perceived empathy and distress as outcomes.

RESULTS

More face gaze towards patients was associated with lower trust, after correction for gender, age, education level, presence of caregivers, and social anxiety (β=-0.17, P=0.048). There was no moderation effect of social anxiety nor a relation between face gaze and perceived empathy or distress.

CONCLUSIONS

These results challenge the notion that more physician gaze is by definition beneficial for the physician-patient relationship. For example, the extent of conversation about emotional issues might explain our findings, where more emotional talk could be associated with more intense gazing and feelings of discomfort in the patient. To better understand the relation between physician gaze and patient outcomes, future studies should assess bidirectional face gaze during consultations.

Pupil dilation predicts modulation of direct gaze on action value calculations

Perceiving direct gaze facilitates social cognition and behaviour. We hypothesized that direct gaze modulates decision-making, particularly calculations of action values. To test our hypothesis, we used the reinforcement learning paradigm in situations with or without direct gaze. Forty adults were recruited and participated in pupil size measurements and a two-armed bandit task. The task was conducted with 70% and 30% reward probabilities for each option. During the task, a female showing the Direct Gaze (DG) or Closed Eyes (CE) condition was presented from the start of each trial. The results showed that behavioural bias to choices with 70% reward probability increased more in the DG condition than in the CE condition and the expected reward value. This bias to choices with 70% reward in the DG condition was predicted by pupil dilation to DG. These results suggest that participants over-evaluated the expected reward value in the DG condition, and this DG effect may be related to subjective expectations of rewarding events indexed by pupil dilations. It is considered that perceiving direct gaze is a driver of reward expectations that modulate action value calculations and then cognitive processing and behaviours are facilitated.

Direct Gaze Holds Attention, but Not in Individuals with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

The attentional response to eye-gaze stimuli is still largely unexplored in individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Here, we focused on an attentional phenomenon according to which a direct-gaze face can hold attention in a perceiver. Individuals with OCD and a group of matched healthy controls were asked to discriminate, through a speeded manual response, a peripheral target. Meanwhile, a task-irrelevant face displaying either direct gaze (in the eye-contact condition) or averted gaze (in the no-eye-contact condition) was also presented at the centre of the screen. Overall, the latencies were slower for faces with direct gaze than for faces with averted gaze; however, this difference was reliable in the healthy control group but not in the OCD group. This suggests the presence of an unusual attentional response to direct gaze in this clinical population.

Attention to live eye contact in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder

A number of studies have reported diminished attention to the eyes in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). These studies predominantly used static images of faces as stimuli. Recent studies, however, have shown enhanced response to eye contact in typically developing (TD) individuals when they observe a person in a live interaction. We investigated physiological orienting to perceived eye contact in adolescents with ASD and TD adolescents when they observed a person in live interaction or viewed a photograph of the same person's face. We measured heart rate (HR) deceleration as an index of attentional orienting. Adolescents with ASD, as well as TD adolescents, showed significant HR deceleration for the direct gaze compared to an averted gaze in the live condition, but not in the photographic condition. The results suggest an intact response to perceived eye contact in individuals with ASD during a live face-to-face interaction. LAY SUMMARY: Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have a different eye gaze pattern when observing photographic faces. However, little is known about how individuals with ASD process a real person's face. We measured heart rate (HR) and found that adolescents with ASD showed the typical decline in HR when they made eye contact with a real person, which suggests that both groups of individuals directed their attention to eye contact in a live face-to-face interaction.

When eyes beat lips: speaker gaze affects audiovisual integration in the McGurk illusion

Eye contact is a dynamic social signal that captures attention and plays a critical role in human communication. In particular, direct gaze often accompanies communicative acts in an ostensive function: a speaker directs her gaze towards the addressee to highlight the fact that this message is being intentionally communicated to her. The addressee, in turn, integrates the speaker’s auditory and visual speech signals (i.e., her vocal sounds and lip movements) into a unitary percept. It is an open question whether the speaker’s gaze affects how the addressee integrates the speaker’s multisensory speech signals. We investigated this question using the classic McGurk illusion, an illusory percept created by presenting mismatching auditory (vocal sounds) and visual information (speaker’s lip movements). Specifically, we manipulated whether the speaker (a) moved his eyelids up/down (i.e., open/closed his eyes) prior to speaking or did not show any eye motion, and (b) spoke with open or closed eyes. When the speaker’s eyes moved (i.e., opened or closed) before an utterance, and when the speaker spoke with closed eyes, the McGurk illusion was weakened (i.e., addressees reported significantly fewer illusory percepts). In line with previous research, this suggests that motion (opening or closing), as well as the closed state of the speaker’s eyes, captured addressees’ attention, thereby reducing the influence of the speaker’s lip movements on the addressees’ audiovisual integration process. Our findings reaffirm the power of speaker gaze to guide attention, showing that its dynamics can modulate low-level processes such as the integration of multisensory speech signals.

Human face and gaze perception is highly context specific and involves bottom-up and top-down neural processing

This review summarizes human perception and processing of face and gaze signals. Face and gaze signals are important means of non-verbal social communication. The review highlights that: (1) some evidence is available suggesting that the perception and processing of facial information starts in the prenatal period; (2) the perception and processing of face identity, expression and gaze direction is highly context specific, the effect of race and culture being a case in point. Culture affects by means of experiential shaping and social categorization the way in which information on face and gaze is collected and perceived; (3) face and gaze processing occurs in the so-called 'social brain'. Accumulating evidence suggests that the processing of facial identity, facial emotional expression and gaze involves two parallel and interacting pathways: a fast and crude subcortical route and a slower cortical pathway. The flow of information is bi-directional and includes bottom-up and top-down processing. The cortical networks particularly include the fusiform gyrus, superior temporal sulcus (STS), intraparietal sulcus, temporoparietal junction and medial prefrontal cortex.

Gaze facilitates responsivity during hand coordinated joint attention

The coordination of attention between individuals is a fundamental part of everyday human social interaction. Previous work has focused on the role of gaze information for guiding responses during joint attention episodes. However, in many contexts, hand gestures such as pointing provide another valuable source of information about the locus of attention. The current study developed a novel virtual reality paradigm to investigate the extent to which initiator gaze information is used by responders to guide joint attention responses in the presence of more visually salient and spatially precise pointing gestures. Dyads were instructed to use pointing gestures to complete a cooperative joint attention task in a virtual environment. Eye and hand tracking enabled real-time interaction and provided objective measures of gaze and pointing behaviours. Initiators displayed gaze behaviours that were spatially congruent with the subsequent pointing gestures. Responders overtly attended to the initiator’s gaze during the joint attention episode. However, both these initiator and responder behaviours were highly variable across individuals. Critically, when responders did overtly attend to their partner’s face, their saccadic reaction times were faster when the initiator’s gaze was also congruent with the pointing gesture, and thus predictive of the joint attention location. These results indicate that humans attend to and process gaze information to facilitate joint attention responsivity, even in contexts where gaze information is implicit to the task and joint attention is explicitly cued by more spatially precise and visually salient pointing gestures.

How Neuroimaging Can Aid the Interpretation of Art

Cognitive neuroscience of art continues to be criticized for failing to provide interesting results about art itself. In particular, results of brain imaging experiments have not yet been utilized in interpretation of particular works of art. Here we revisit a recent study in which we explored the neuronal and behavioral response to painted portraits with a direct versus an averted gaze. We then demonstrate how fMRI results can be related to the art historical interpretation of a specific painting. The evidentiary status of neuroimaging data is not different from any other extra-pictorial facts that art historians uncover in their research and relate to their account of the significance of a work of art. They are not explanatory in a strong sense, yet they provide supportive evidence for the art writer’s inference about the intended meaning of a given work. We thus argue that brain imaging can assume an important role in the interpretation of particular art works.

Hidden intentions: Visual awareness prioritizes perceived attention even without eyes or faces

Eye contact is a powerful social signal, and it readily captures attention. Recent work has suggested that direct gaze is prioritized even unconsciously: faces rendered invisible via interocular suppression enter awareness faster when they look directly at (vs. away from) you. Such effects may be driven in a relatively low level way by the special visual properties of eyes, per se, but here we asked whether they might instead arise from the perception of a deeper property: being the focus of another agent's attention and/or intentions. We report five experiments which collectively explore whether visual awareness also prioritizes distinctly non-eye-like stimuli that nevertheless convey directedness. We first showed that directed (vs. averted) 'mouth' shapes also break through into awareness faster, after being rendered invisible by continuous flash suppression - a direct 'gaze' effect without any eyes. But such effects could still be specific to faces (if not eyes), so we next asked whether the prioritization of directed intentions would still occur even for stimuli that have no faces at all. In fact, even simple geometric shapes can be seen as intentional, as when numerous randomly scattered cones are all consistently pointing at you. And indeed, even such directed (vs. averted) cones entered awareness faster - a direct 'gaze' effect without any facial cues. Additional control experiments ruled out effects of both symmetry and response biases. We conclude that the perception of directed intentions is sufficient to boost objects into awareness, and that putative eye-contact effects might instead reflect more general phenomena of 'mind contact'.

Mutual gaze with a robot affects human neural activity and delays decision-making processes

In most everyday life situations, the brain needs to engage not only in making decisions but also in anticipating and predicting the behavior of others. In such contexts, gaze can be highly informative about others’ intentions, goals, and upcoming decisions. Here, we investigated whether a humanoid robot’s gaze (mutual or averted) influences the way people strategically reason in a social decision-making context. Specifically, participants played a strategic game with the robot iCub while we measured their behavior and neural activity by means of electroencephalography (EEG). Participants were slower to respond when iCub established mutual gaze before their decision, relative to averted gaze. This was associated with a higher decision threshold in the drift diffusion model and accompanied by more synchronized EEG alpha activity. In addition, we found that participants reasoned about the robot’s actions in both conditions. However, those who mostly experienced the averted gaze were more likely to adopt a self-oriented strategy, and their neural activity showed higher sensitivity to outcomes. Together, these findings suggest that robot gaze acts as a strong social signal for humans, modulating response times, decision threshold, neural synchronization, as well as choice strategies and sensitivity to outcomes. This has strong implications for all contexts involving human-robot interaction, from robotics to clinical applications.

Investigating facilitatory versus inhibitory effects of dynamic social and non-social cues on attention in a realistic space

This study aimed to investigate the facilitatory versus inhibitory effects of dynamic non-predictive central cues presented in a realistic environment. Realistic human-avatars initiated eye contact and then dynamically looked to the left, right or centre of a table. A moving stick served as a non-social control cue and participants localised (Experiment 1) or discriminated (Experiment 2) a contextually relevant target (teapot/teacup). The cues movement took 500 ms and stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA, 150 ms/300 ms/500 ms/1000 ms) were measured from movement initiation. Similar cuing effects were seen for the social avatar and non-social stick cue across tasks. Results showed facilitatory processes without inhibition, though there was some variation by SOA and task. This is the first time facilitatory versus inhibitory processes have been directly investigated where eye contact is initiated prior to gaze shift. These dynamic stimuli allow a better understanding of how attention might be cued in more realistic environments.

The roles of gaze and head orientation in face categorization during rapid serial visual presentation

Little is known about how perceived gaze direction and head orientation may influence human categorization of visual stimuli as faces. To address this question, a sequence of unsegmented natural images, each containing a random face or a non-face object, was presented in rapid succession (stimulus duration: 91.7 ms per image) during which human observers were instructed to respond immediately to every face presentation. Faces differed in gaze and head orientation in 7 combinations - full-front views with perceived gaze (1) directed to the observer, (2) averted to the left, or (3) averted to the right, left ¾ side views with (4) direct gaze or (5) averted gaze, and right ¾ side views with (6) direct gaze or (7) averted gaze - were presented randomly throughout the sequence. We found highly accurate and rapid behavioural responses to all kinds of faces. Crucially, both perceived gaze direction and head orientation had comparable, non-interactive effects on response times, where direct gaze was responded faster than averted gaze by 48 ms and full-front view faster than ¾ side view also by 48 ms on average. Presentations of full-front faces with direct gaze led to an additive speed advantage of 96 ms to ¾ faces with averted gaze. The results reveal that the effects of perceived gaze direction and head orientation on the speed of face categorization probably depend on the degree of social relevance of the face to the viewer.

"Watching Eyes" Triggers Third-Party Punishment: The Role of Emotion Within the Eyes

Third-party punishment refers to a behavioral phenomenon whereby people punish wrongdoers even if their sanction incurs personal costs but yields no direct benefits. Given the eye cues demonstrated ability to convey signals of being observed, its effect on third-party punishment, driven by virtue of its effects on others' perceptions, was investigated. In addition, emotional message featured in the eye region is crucial in social interaction, whether the emotion within the eyes serves this effect with varying degrees of influence has rarely considered. The present study aimed at exploring (a) the watching eyes effect on the third-party punishment and (b) whether this effect varies from negative eyes to positive eyes. By two experiments using a modified Third-Party Dictator Game, we displayed either eye images or control images above the question on whether to punish the dictators or not. There was no emotional diversity of eye cues in Experiment 1, and most participants tended to punish for unfair offer. However, the appearance of eye images increased the punishment relative to control images. In Experiment 2, the eye cues were subdivided into positive and negative. The effect of watching eyes on the third-party punishment was significantly stronger when the eyes were negative than positive. Results revealed that eye cues play a role in promoting the third-party punishment and offer a potential insight into the mixed findings, such that the emotion within the eyes, especially the negative expression in the eyes, may influence the watching eyes effect.

Picturing donations: Do images influence conservation fundraising?

Many environmental organizations use photographic images to engage donors and supporters. While images play a role in fundraising, visual framing remains understudied in the environmental field. Few real-world experiments have examined which types of images result in higher donations to biodiversity conservation. We examined the role of images in conservation fundraising through a public experiment at Zoomarine, a marine park located in southern Portugal. Zoomarine runs a program called Dolphin Emotions where visitors pay to learn about dolphin biology and to interact with dolphins. We placed a donation box and a large informational poster about the Marine Megafauna Foundation, a conservation partner, in the lounge of the Dolphin Emotions program, which is open to participants and their families. The text on the poster, which solicited donations for the Marine Megafauna Foundation, was held constant, while four different image conditions were tested: dolphins, ocean wildlife, children, and people staring out from the poster (i.e., “watching eyes”). Each image condition was displayed for three days at a time and was on display for at least seven randomly assigned three-day periods over the course of 91 days. 20,944 visitors passed the donation box and the four poster conditions during this time and a total of € 952.40 was collected. The differences in mean donations in € per visitor per 3-day period were not statistically significant, F(3, 25) = 0.745, p = 0.54. Thus, we did not find that different images had a significant influence on donations to conservation. This may be due to our choice of visual frames or to the use of a donation box, which is a passive fundraising channel. Future research should examine how visual framing influences donations in other public settings and should test the influence of other visual frames on philanthropic behavior.

Technical Challenges for Smooth Interaction With Seniors With Dementia: Lessons From Humanitude™

Due to cognitive and socio-emotional decline and mental diseases, senior citizens, especially people with dementia (PwD), struggle to interact smoothly with their caregivers. Therefore, various care techniques have been proposed to develop good relationships with seniors. Among them, Humanitude is one promising technique that provides caregivers with useful interaction skills to improve their relationships with PwD, from four perspectives: face-to-face interaction, verbal communication, touch interaction, and helping care receivers stand up (physical interaction). Regardless of advances in elderly care techniques, since current social robots interact with seniors in the same manner as they do with younger adults, they lack several important functions. For example, Humanitude emphasizes the importance of interaction at a relatively intimate distance to facilitate communication with seniors. Unfortunately, few studies have developed an interaction model for clinical care communication. In this paper, we discuss the current challenges to develop a social robot that can smoothly interact with PwDs and overview the interaction skills used in Humanitude as well as the existing technologies.

Beholden: The Emotional Effects of Having Eye Contact While Breaking Social Norms

This study looks into the role that eye contact plays in helping people to control themselves in social settings and to avoid breaking social norms. Based on previous research, it is likely that eye contact increases prosocial behavior via heightened self-awareness and increased interpersonal synchrony. In our study, we propose that eye contact can also support constructive social behavior by causing people to experience heightened embarrassment when they are breaking social norms. We tested this in a lab experiment (N = 60) in which participants read insults at the experimenter (i.e., they exhibited norm breaking behavior). In the experimental condition, participants maintained eye contact with the experimenter. In the control condition, the experimenter did not maintain eye contact. We measured embarrassment with a self-report measure, heart rate to capture arousal, and two observational indicators of embarrassment (hesitation and laughter). In line with our hypotheses, having eye contact during norm breaking behavior as compared to no eye contact led to a stronger increase in self-reported embarrassment, a higher heart rate as well as more hesitation and more laughter. We conclude that eye contact does indeed lead to more embarrassment, while breaking social norms. This implies that eye contact gives people the power to punish norm breaking in others by inducing an aversive emotional experience.

From Gaze Perception to Social Cognition: The Shared-Attention System

When two people look at the same object in the environment and are aware of each other's attentional state, they find themselves in a shared-attention episode. This can occur through intentional or incidental signaling and, in either case, causes an exchange of information between the two parties about the environment and each other's mental states. In this article, we give an overview of what is known about the building blocks of shared attention (gaze perception and joint attention) and focus on bringing to bear new findings on the initiation of shared attention that complement knowledge about gaze following and incorporate new insights from research into the sense of agency. We also present a neurocognitive model, incorporating first-, second-, and third-order social cognitive processes (the shared-attention system, or SAS), building on previous models and approaches. The SAS model aims to encompass perceptual, cognitive, and affective processes that contribute to and follow on from the establishment of shared attention. These processes include fundamental components of social cognition such as reward, affective evaluation, agency, empathy, and theory of mind.

How the fear of COVID-19 changed the way we look at human faces

Do we look at persons currently or previously affected by COVID-19 the same way as we do with healthy ones? In this eye-tracking study, we investigated how participants (N = 54) looked at faces of individuals presented as "COVID-19 Free", "Sick with COVID-19", or "Recovered from COVID-19". Results showed that participants tend to look at the eyes of COVID-19-free faces longer than at those of both COVID-19-related faces. Crucially, we also found an increase of visual attention for the mouth of the COVID-19-related faces, possibly due to the threatening characterisation of such area as a transmission vehicle for SARS-CoV-2. Thus, by detailing how people dynamically changed the way of looking at faces as a function of the perceived risk of contagion, we provide the first evidence in the literature about the impact of the pandemic on the most basic level of social interaction.

Meeting another's gaze shortens subjective time by capturing attention

Gaze directed at the observer (direct gaze) is an important and highly salient social signal with multiple effects on cognitive processes and behavior. It is disputed whether the effect of direct gaze is caused by attentional capture or increased arousal. Time estimation may provide an answer because attentional capture predicts an underestimation of time whereas arousal predicts an overestimation. In a temporal bisection task, observers were required to classify the duration of a stimulus as short or long. Stimulus duration was selected randomly between 988 and 1479 ms. When gaze was directed at the observer, participants underestimated stimulus duration, suggesting that effects of direct gaze are caused by attentional capture, not increased arousal. Critically, this effect was limited to dynamic stimuli where gaze appeared to move toward the participant. The underestimation was present with stimuli showing a full face, but also with stimuli showing only the eye region, inverted faces and high-contrast eye-like stimuli. However, it was absent with static pictures of full faces and dynamic nonfigurative stimuli. Because the effect of direct gaze depended on motion, which is common in naturalistic scenes, more consideration needs to be given to the ecological validity of stimuli in the study of social attention.

Enhanced detection of gaze toward an object: Sociocognitive influences on visual search

Another person's gaze direction is a rich source of social information, especially eyes gazing toward prominent or relevant objects. To guide attention to these important stimuli, visual search mechanisms may incorporate sophisticated coding of eye-gaze and its spatial relationship to other objects. Alternatively, any guidance might reflect the action of simple perceptual 'templates' tuned to visual features of socially relevant objects, or intrinsic salience of direct-gazing eyes for human vision. Previous findings that direct gaze (toward oneself) is prioritised over averted gaze do not distinguish between these accounts. To resolve this issue, we compared search for eyes gazing toward a prominent object versus gazing away, finding more efficient search for eyes 'gazing toward' the object. This effect was most clearly seen in target-present trials when gaze was task-relevant. Visual search mechanisms appear to specify gazer-object relations, a computational building-block of theory of mind.

Social Agency as a continuum

Sense of Agency, the phenomenology associated with causing one's own actions and corresponding effects, is a cornerstone of human experience. Social Agency can be defined as the Sense of Agency experienced in any situation in which the effects of our actions are related to a conspecific. This can be implemented as the other's reactions being caused by our action, joint action modulating our Sense of Agency, or the other's mere social presence influencing our Sense of Agency. It is currently an open question how such Social Agency can be conceptualized and how it relates to its nonsocial variant. This is because, compared with nonsocial Sense of Agency, the concept of Social Agency has remained oversimplified and underresearched, with disparate empirical paradigms yielding divergent results. Reviewing the empirical evidence and the commonalities and differences between different instantiations of Social Agency, we propose that Social Agency can be conceptualized as a continuum, in which the degree of cooperation is the key dimension that determines our Sense of Agency, and how it relates to nonsocial Sense of Agency. Taking this perspective, we review how the different factors that typically influence Sense of Agency affect Social Agency, and in the process highlight outstanding empirical questions within the field. Finally, concepts from wider research areas are discussed in relation to the ecological validity of Social Agency paradigms, and we provide recommendations for future methodology.

Feeling through another's eyes: Perceived gaze direction impacts ERP and behavioural measures of positive and negative affective empathy

Looking at the eyes informs us about the thoughts and emotions of those around us, and impacts our own emotional state. However, it is unknown how perceiving direct and averted gaze impacts our ability to share the gazer's positive and negative emotions, abilities referred to as positive and negative affective empathy. We presented 44 participants with contextual sentences describing positive, negative and neutral events happening to other people (e.g. "Her newborn was saved/killed/fed yesterday afternoon."). These were designed to elicit positive, negative, or little to no empathy, and were followed by direct or averted gaze images of the individuals described. Participants rated their affective empathy for the individual and their own emotional valence on each trial. Event-related potentials time-locked to face-onset and associated with empathy and emotional processing were recorded to investigate whether they were modulated by gaze direction. Relative to averted gaze, direct gaze was associated with increased positive valence in the positive and neutral conditions and with increased positive empathy ratings. A similar pattern was found at the neural level, using robust mass-univariate statistics. The N100, thought to reflect an automatic activation of emotion areas, was modulated by gaze in the affective empathy conditions, with opposite effect directions in positive and negative conditions.. The P200, an ERP component sensitive to positive stimuli, was modulated by gaze direction only in the positive empathy condition. Positive and negative trials were processed similarly at the early N200 processing stage, but later diverged, with only negative trials modulating the EPN, P300 and LPP components. These results suggest that positive and negative affective empathy are associated with distinct time-courses, and that perceived gaze direction uniquely modulates positive empathy, highlighting the importance of studying empathy with face stimuli.