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Babinet MN, Demily C, Gobin E, Laurent C, Maillet T, Michael GA. The Time Course of Information Processing During Eye Direction Perception. Exp Psychol 2023; 70:324-335. [PMID: 38602119 DOI: 10.1027/1618-3169/a000606] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/12/2024]
Abstract
Gaze directed at the observer (direct gaze) is a highly salient social signal. Despite the existence of a preferential orientation toward direct gaze, none of the studies carried out so far seem to have explicitly studied the time course of information processing during gaze direction judgment. In an eye direction judgment task, participants were presented with a sketch of a face. A temporal asynchrony was introduced between the presentation of the eyes and that of the rest of the face. Indeed, the face could be presented before the eyes, the eyes could be presented before the face, or the face and the eyes could be presented simultaneously. In a second time, the face direction was also manipulated. The results suggest that the time course of information processing during eye direction judgment follows a continuum that makes it possible to perceive the eyes first and then to use the facial context to judge the direction of gaze. Furthermore, the congruency between the direction of gaze and that of the face confirms this observation. Although these results are discussed in the light of existing theories about the mechanisms underlying gaze processing, our data provide new information suggesting that, despite their power to capture attention, the eyes probably have to stand out from a more general spatial configuration (i.e., the face) in order for their direction to be adequately processed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marie-Noëlle Babinet
- Centre de Référence Maladies Rares Troubles du Comportement d'Origine Génétique (GénoPsy Lyon), Centre d'excellence Autisme iMIND, Le Vinatier Etablissement Lyonnais référent en psychiatrie et santé mentale, UMR 5229, CNRS & Université Lyon 1, Lyon, France
- Département de Sciences Cognitives, Psychologie Cognitive & Neuropsychologie, Institut de Psychologie, Unité de Recherche Étude des Mécanismes Cognitifs (EA 3082), Université Lumiére Lyon 2, Lyon, France
| | - Caroline Demily
- Centre de Référence Maladies Rares Troubles du Comportement d'Origine Génétique (GénoPsy Lyon), Centre d'excellence Autisme iMIND, Le Vinatier Etablissement Lyonnais référent en psychiatrie et santé mentale, UMR 5229, CNRS & Université Lyon 1, Lyon, France
| | - Eloïse Gobin
- Département de Sciences Cognitives, Psychologie Cognitive & Neuropsychologie, Institut de Psychologie, Unité de Recherche Étude des Mécanismes Cognitifs (EA 3082), Université Lumiére Lyon 2, Lyon, France
| | - Clémence Laurent
- Département de Sciences Cognitives, Psychologie Cognitive & Neuropsychologie, Institut de Psychologie, Unité de Recherche Étude des Mécanismes Cognitifs (EA 3082), Université Lumiére Lyon 2, Lyon, France
| | - Thomas Maillet
- Département de Sciences Cognitives, Psychologie Cognitive & Neuropsychologie, Institut de Psychologie, Unité de Recherche Étude des Mécanismes Cognitifs (EA 3082), Université Lumiére Lyon 2, Lyon, France
| | - George A Michael
- Département de Sciences Cognitives, Psychologie Cognitive & Neuropsychologie, Institut de Psychologie, Unité de Recherche Étude des Mécanismes Cognitifs (EA 3082), Université Lumiére Lyon 2, Lyon, France
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Wang R, Wang Y, Chen C, Huo L, Liu C. How do eye cues affect behaviors? Two meta-analyses. CURRENT PSYCHOLOGY 2023. [DOI: 10.1007/s12144-023-04395-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/21/2023]
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Michel C, Pauen S, Hoehl S. When it pays off to take a look: Infants learn to follow an object's motion with their gaze-Especially if it features eyes. INFANCY 2022; 27:515-532. [PMID: 35266282 DOI: 10.1111/infa.12464] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Social cues and instrumental learning are two aspects potentially fostering early gaze following. We systematically investigated the influence of social features (schematic eyes vs. reverse-contrast eyes) and gaze-contingent reinforcement (elicited vs. not elicited) on 4-month-olds' learning to attend to gaze-cued objects. In 4 experiments, we tested infants' (N = 74) gaze following of a turning block with schematic or reverse-contrast eyes. In Experiments 1 and 2, infants could elicit an attractive animation in a training phase via interactive eye tracking by following the turning of the block. Experiments 3 and 4 were yoked controls without contingent reinforcement. Infants did not spontaneously follow the motion of the block. Four-month-olds always followed the block after training when it featured schematic eyes. When the block featured reverse-contrast eyes, the training phase only affected infants' looking behavior without reinforcement. While speaking to a certain degree of plasticity, findings stress the importance of eyes for guiding infants' attention.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christine Michel
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.,Faculty of Education, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Sabina Pauen
- Institute of Psychology, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany
| | - Stefanie Hoehl
- Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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Kliesch C, Parise E, Reid V, Hoehl S. The role of social signals in segmenting observed actions in 18-month-old children. Dev Sci 2021; 25:e13198. [PMID: 34820963 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13198] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/05/2021] [Revised: 07/16/2021] [Accepted: 10/22/2021] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
Learning about actions requires children to identify the boundaries of an action and its units. Whereas some action units are easily identified, parents can support children's action learning by adjusting the presentation and using social signals. However, currently, little is understood regarding how children use these signals to learn actions. In the current study, we investigate the possibility that communicative signals are a particularly suitable cue for segmenting events. We investigated this hypothesis by presenting 18-month-old children (N = 60) with short action sequences consisting of toy animals either hopping or sliding across a board into a house, but interrupting this two-step sequence either (a) using an ostensive signal as a segmentation cue, (b) using a non-ostensive segmentation cue and (c) without additional segmentation information between the actions. Marking the boundary using communicative signals increased children's imitation of the less salient sliding action. Imitation of the hopping action remained unaffected. Crucially, marking the boundary of both actions using a non-communicative control condition did not increase imitation of either action. Communicative signals might be particularly suitable in segmenting non-salient actions that would otherwise be perceived as part of another action or as non-intentional. These results provide evidence of the importance of ostensive signals at event boundaries in scaffolding children's learning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christian Kliesch
- Department of Psychology, Potsdam University, Potsdam, Germany.,Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.,Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
| | - Eugenio Parise
- Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK.,CIMeC-Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
| | - Vincent Reid
- Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK.,School of Psychology, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
| | - Stefanie Hoehl
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.,Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, University of Vienna, Wien, Austria
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Eye Direction Detection and Perception as Premises of a Social Brain: A Narrative Review of Behavioral and Neural Data. COGNITIVE AFFECTIVE & BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE 2021; 22:1-20. [PMID: 34642895 DOI: 10.3758/s13415-021-00959-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 09/23/2021] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
The eyes and the gaze are important stimuli for social interaction in humans. Impaired recognition of facial identity, facial emotions, and inference of the intentions of others may result from difficulties in extracting information relevant to the eye region, mainly the direction of gaze. Therefore, a review of these data is of interest. Behavioral data demonstrating the importance of the eye region and how humans respond to gaze direction are reviewed narratively, and several theoretical models on how visual information on gaze is processed are discussed to propose a unified hypothesis. Several issues that have not yet been investigated are identified. The authors tentatively suggest experiments that might help progress research in this area. The neural aspects are subsequently reviewed to best describe the low-level and higher-level visual information processing stages in the targeted subcortical and cortical areas. A specific neural network is proposed on the basis of the literature. Various gray areas, such as the temporality of the processing of visual information, the question of salience priority, and the coordination between the two hemispheres, remain unclear and require further investigations. Finally, disordered gaze direction detection mechanisms and their consequences on social cognition and behavior are discussed as key deficiencies in several conditions, such as autism spectrum disorder, 22q11.2 deletion, schizophrenia, and social anxiety disorder. This narrative review provides significant additional data showing that the detection and perception of someone's gaze is an essential part of the development of our social brain.
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Çetinçelik M, Rowland CF, Snijders TM. Do the Eyes Have It? A Systematic Review on the Role of Eye Gaze in Infant Language Development. Front Psychol 2021; 11:589096. [PMID: 33584424 PMCID: PMC7874056 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.589096] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/30/2020] [Accepted: 11/25/2020] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Eye gaze is a ubiquitous cue in child–caregiver interactions, and infants are highly attentive to eye gaze from very early on. However, the question of why infants show gaze-sensitive behavior, and what role this sensitivity to gaze plays in their language development, is not yet well-understood. To gain a better understanding of the role of eye gaze in infants' language learning, we conducted a broad systematic review of the developmental literature for all studies that investigate the role of eye gaze in infants' language development. Across 77 peer-reviewed articles containing data from typically developing human infants (0–24 months) in the domain of language development, we identified two broad themes. The first tracked the effect of eye gaze on four developmental domains: (1) vocabulary development, (2) word–object mapping, (3) object processing, and (4) speech processing. Overall, there is considerable evidence that infants learn more about objects and are more likely to form word–object mappings in the presence of eye gaze cues, both of which are necessary for learning words. In addition, there is good evidence for longitudinal relationships between infants' gaze following abilities and later receptive and expressive vocabulary. However, many domains (e.g., speech processing) are understudied; further work is needed to decide whether gaze effects are specific to tasks, such as word–object mapping or whether they reflect a general learning enhancement mechanism. The second theme explored the reasons why eye gaze might be facilitative for learning, addressing the question of whether eye gaze is treated by infants as a specialized socio-cognitive cue. We concluded that the balance of evidence supports the idea that eye gaze facilitates infants' learning by enhancing their arousal, memory, and attentional capacities to a greater extent than other low-level attentional cues. However, as yet, there are too few studies that directly compare the effect of eye gaze cues and non-social, attentional cues for strong conclusions to be drawn. We also suggest that there might be a developmental effect, with eye gaze, over the course of the first 2 years of life, developing into a truly ostensive cue that enhances language learning across the board.
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Affiliation(s)
- Melis Çetinçelik
- Language Development Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands
| | - Caroline F Rowland
- Language Development Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands.,Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
| | - Tineke M Snijders
- Language Development Department, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands.,Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
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Michel C, Kayhan E, Pauen S, Hoehl S. Effects of Reinforcement Learning on Gaze Following of Gaze and Head Direction in Early Infancy: An Interactive Eye-Tracking Study. Child Dev 2021; 92:e364-e382. [PMID: 33427319 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13497] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
The current four experiments investigated gaze following behavior in response to gaze and head turns in 4-month-olds and how reinforcement learning influences this behavior (N = 99). Using interactive eye tracking, infants' gaze elicited an animation whenever infants followed a person's head or gaze orientation (Experiment 1.1, 2.1 and 2.2) or looked at the opposite side (Experiment 1.2). Infants spontaneously followed the direction of a turning head with and without simultaneously shifted gaze direction (Cohen's d: 0.93-1.05) but not the direction of isolated gaze shifts. We only found a weak effect of reinforcement on gaze following in one of the four experiments. Results will be discussed with regard to the impact of reinforcement on the maintenance of already existing gaze following behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christine Michel
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences.,Leipzig University
| | - Ezgi Kayhan
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences.,Potsdam University
| | | | - Stefanie Hoehl
- Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences.,University of Vienna
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Wahl S, Marinović V, Träuble B. Gaze cues of isolated eyes facilitate the encoding and further processing of objects in 4-month-old infants. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2019; 36:100621. [PMID: 30716584 PMCID: PMC6969213 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2019.100621] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/14/2018] [Revised: 12/27/2018] [Accepted: 01/21/2019] [Indexed: 11/03/2022] Open
Abstract
We investigated young infants' object encoding and processing in response to isolated eye gaze cues on the neural and behavioral level. In two experiments, 4-month-old infants watched a pair of isolated eyes gazing towards or away from novel objects. Subsequently, the same objects were presented alone (i.e., without eyes). We measured event-related potentials (ERP) in response to object-directed and object-averted eye gaze as well as to the subsequently presented isolated objects. Using eye-tracking methods, we additionally measured infants' looking behavior in reaction to the subsequently presented isolated objects. The ERP data revealed an enhanced slow wave positivity for object-directed eye gaze, indicating increased encoding of observed gaze cues. Regarding the objects, we found an enhanced Nc amplitude and increased looking times in response to previously uncued objects, indicating a novelty response on the neural and behavioral level. The results suggest that isolated eye gaze stimuli are sufficient to trigger object encoding and facilitate further object processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sebastian Wahl
- University of Wuppertal, School of Education, Wuppertal, Germany.
| | - Vesna Marinović
- University of Cologne, Department of Psychology, Cologne, Germany
| | - Birgit Träuble
- University of Cologne, Department of Psychology, Cologne, Germany
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The role of the motion cue in the dynamic gaze-cueing effect: A study of the lateralized ERPs. Neuropsychologia 2019; 124:151-160. [PMID: 30582945 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.12.016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/10/2018] [Revised: 12/20/2018] [Accepted: 12/20/2018] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
Abstract
When face was inverted, dynamic gaze cues could still effectively direct attention despite the disruption of configural face processing, but the static gaze cues could not. The present study investigated the role of the motion cue in the dynamic Gaze-Cueing Effect (GCE). With schematic and real faces, we employed the gaze-cueing paradigm to examine the differences among three kinds of cues (static gaze cue, dynamic gaze cue and motion cue) based on behavioral results and event-related potentials. Behavioral results revealed significant GCE in all conditions. In the schematic face group, the motion cue (two symmetrical dots shifting slightly to the side) induced a significantly smaller GCE than the dynamic gaze cues (two symmetrical dots moving within a rounded circle), while in the real face group, the motion cue (that is, the inverted-face gaze cue) remained a strong GCE compared with other conditions. With regard to the ERP results, we found the early directing attention negativity (EDAN), which was sensitive to voluntary cues (e.g. arrow cue) rather than gaze cue, in the schematic motion cue condition, but not in the inverted-face gaze cue condition. We supposed that the motion cue (real face) could activate the configural face processing even when the face is inverted. This finding supported that EDAN reflected a cue-triggered attention shift.
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Capozzi F, Ristic J. How attention gates social interactions. Ann N Y Acad Sci 2018; 1426:179-198. [PMID: 29799619 DOI: 10.1111/nyas.13854] [Citation(s) in RCA: 54] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2018] [Revised: 03/30/2018] [Accepted: 04/24/2018] [Indexed: 01/25/2023]
Abstract
Social interactions are at the core of social life. However, humans selectively choose their exchange partners and do not engage in all available opportunities for social encounters. In this review, we argue that attentional systems play an important role in guiding the selection of social interactions. Supported by both classic and emerging literature, we identify and characterize the three core processes-perception, interpretation, and evaluation-that interact with attentional systems to modulate selective responses to social environments. Perceptual processes facilitate attentional prioritization of social cues. Interpretative processes link attention with understanding of cues' social meanings and agents' mental states. Evaluative processes determine the perceived value of the source of social information. The interplay between attention and these three routes of processing places attention in a powerful role to manage the selection of the vast amount of social information that individuals encounter on a daily basis and, in turn, gate the selection of social interactions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francesca Capozzi
- Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
| | - Jelena Ristic
- Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
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