Combined Effects of Gaze and Orientation of Faces on Person Judgments in Social Situations

Off-camera gaze decreases evaluation scores in a simulated online job interview

During the pandemic, digital communication became paramount. Due to the discrepancy between the placement of the camera and the screen in typical smartphones, tablets and laptops, mutual eye contact cannot be made in standard video communication. Although the positive effect of eye contact in traditional communication has been well-documented, its role in virtual contexts remains less explored. In this study, we conducted experiments to gauge the impact of gaze direction during a simulated online job interview. Twelve university students were recruited as interviewees. The interview consisted of two recording sessions where they delivered the same prepared speech: in the first session, they faced the camera, and in the second, they directed their gaze towards the screen. Based on the recorded videos, we created three stimuli: one where the interviewee's gaze was directed at the camera (CAM), one where the interviewee's gaze was skewed downward (SKW), and a voice-only stimulus without camera recordings (VO). Thirty-eight full-time workers participated in the study and evaluated the stimuli. The results revealed that the SKW condition garnered significantly less favorable evaluations than the CAM condition and the VO condition. Moreover, a secondary analysis indicated a potential gender bias in evaluations: the female evaluators evaluated the interviewees of SKW condition more harshly than the male evaluators did, and the difference in some evaluation criteria between the CAM and SKW conditions was larger for the female interviewees than for the male interviewees. Our findings emphasize the significance of gaze direction and potential gender biases in online interactions.

The Time Course of Information Processing During Eye Direction Perception

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.

Face masks inhibit facial cues for approachability and trustworthiness: an eyetracking study

Wearing face masks during the Covid-19 pandemic has undeniable benefits from our health perspective. However, the interpersonal costs on social interactions may have been underappreciated. Because masks obscure critical facial regions signaling approach/avoidance intent and social trust, this implies that facial inference of approachability and trustworthiness may be severely discounted. Here, in our eyetracking experiment, we show that people judged masked faces as less approachable and trustworthy. Further analyses showed that the attention directed towards the eye region relative to the mouth region mediated the effect on approachability, but not on trustworthiness. This is because for masked faces, with the mouth region obscured, visual attention is then automatically diverted away from the mouth and towards the eye region, which is an undiagnostic cue for judging a target's approachability. Together, these findings support that mask-wearing inhibits the critical facial cues needed for social judgements.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-022-03705-8.

The Effect of Trustor Age and Trustee Age on Trustworthiness Judgments: An Event-Related Potential Study

Perceived trustworthiness based on facial appearance plays an important role in interpersonal trust and cooperative behavior. Interpersonal trust behaviors involve both trustors and trustees. However, there is no clear conclusion on how the age of the two individuals affects interpersonal trust behaviors. Therefore, this study used the trust game task to explore the differences in trust behaviors between two different age groups in response to faces of different ages and analyzed whether such differences were apparent in the face processing stage. The behavioral results showed that only younger adults invested more money with older partners than younger ones; that is, younger adults trusted older faces more. The event-related potential (ERP) analyses showed that in the early stage of face processing, younger faces elicited more negative N170 than older faces; at the same time, older faces elicited more positive VPP than younger faces, and younger adults had more positive VPP than older adults. In the middle and late stages of face processing, younger faces elicited more negative FRN than older faces in younger adults but not in older adults. In addition, older faces elicited more positive LPP than younger faces in older adults but not in younger adults. The neural analyses suggested that age-related differences in facial trustworthiness judgments might occur in the later stages of face processing. Combining the behavioral and neural results, we found a dissociation between trustworthiness perceptions and trust behaviors in both younger and older adults, which may provide insight into how to prevent older adults from being deceived.

Atypical processing pattern of gaze cues in dynamic situations in autism spectrum disorders

Psychological studies have generally shown that individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have particularity in the processing of social information by using static or abstract images. Yet, a recent study showed that there was no difference in their use of social or non-social cues in dynamic interactive situations. To establish the cause of the inconsistent results, we added gaze cues in different directions to the chase detection paradigm to explore whether they would affect the performance of participants with ASD. Meanwhile, eye-tracking methodology was used to investigate whether the processing patterns of gaze cues were different between individuals with ASD and TD. In this study, unlike typical controls, participants with ASD showed no detection advantage when the direction of gaze was consistent with the direction of movement (oriented condition). The results suggested that individuals with ASD may utilize an atypical processing pattern, which makes it difficult for them to use social information contained in oriented gaze cues in dynamic interactive situations.

Swipes and Saves: A Taxonomy of Factors Influencing Aesthetic Assessments and Perceived Beauty of Mobile Phone Photographs

Digital images taken by mobile phones are the most frequent class of images created today. Due to their omnipresence and the many ways they are encountered, they require a specific focus in research. However, to date, there is no systematic compilation of the various factors that may determine our evaluations of such images, and thus no explanation of how users select and identify relatively “better” or “worse” photos. Here, we propose a theoretical taxonomy of factors influencing the aesthetic appeal of mobile phone photographs. Beyond addressing relatively basic/universal image characteristics, perhaps more related to fast (bottom-up) perceptual processing of an image, we also consider factors involved in the slower (top-down) re-appraisal or deepened aesthetic appreciation of an image. We span this taxonomy across specific types of picture genres commonly taken—portraits of other people, selfies, scenes and food. We also discuss the variety of goals, uses, and contextual aspects of users of mobile phone photography. As a working hypothesis, we propose that two main decisions are often made with mobile phone photographs: (1) Users assess images at a first glance—by swiping through a stack of images—focusing on visual aspects that might be decisive to classify them from “low quality” (too dark, out of focus) to “acceptable” to, in rare cases, “an exceptionally beautiful picture.” (2) Users make more deliberate decisions regarding one’s “favorite” picture or the desire to preserve or share a picture with others, which are presumably tied to aspects such as content, framing, but also culture or personality, which have largely been overlooked in empirical research on perception of photographs. In sum, the present review provides an overview of current focal areas and gaps in research and offers a working foundation for upcoming research on the perception of mobile phone photographs as well as future developments in the fields of image recording and sharing technology.

Perceiving the facial trustworthiness: Facial age, emotional expression, and attractiveness

People can make trustworthiness judgements based on facial characteristics. However, the previous findings regarding whether facial age influences interpersonal trust are inconsistent. Using the trust game, the current study investigated the interactions of facial age with attractiveness and emotional expression in regard to trustworthiness judgements. In Experiments 1 and 2, younger participants were asked to invest in either younger or older faces that were shown for 2,000 and 33 ms, respectively. The results showed that people trust the faces of older people more than they do younger people. There was also an interaction between facial age and attractiveness. Participants invested more money in older faces than in younger faces only when they perceived the faces to be less attractive. However, the interaction between facial age and emotional expression was slightly inconsistent in the two experiments. Participants invested more money in older faces that were shown for 2,000 ms when they perceived the happy and sad emotions, but they invested more money in older faces that were shown for 33 ms when they perceived the happy emotion. These results reveal that people make trustworthiness judgements based on multiple facial cues when they view strangers of different ages.

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.

Turning Heads: The Effects of Face View and Eye Gaze Direction on the Perceived Attractiveness of Expressive Faces

We investigated whether the perceived attractiveness of expressive faces was influenced by head turn and eye gaze towards or away from the observer. In all experiments, happy faces were consistently rated as more attractive than angry faces. A head turn towards the observer, whereby a full-face view was shown, was associated with relatively higher attractiveness ratings when gaze direction was aligned with face view (Experiment 1). However, preference for full-face views of happy faces was not affected by gaze shifts towards or away from the observer (Experiment 2a). In Experiment 3, the relative duration of each face view (front-facing or averted at 15°) during a head turn away or towards the observer was manipulated. There was benefit on attractiveness ratings for happy faces shown for a longer duration from the front view, regardless of the direction of head turn. Our findings support previous studies indicating a preference for positive expressions on attractiveness judgements, which is further enhanced by the front views of faces, whether presented during a head turn or shown statically. In sum, our findings imply a complex interaction between cues of social attention, indicated by the view of the face shown, and reward on attractiveness judgements of unfamiliar faces.