Are eyes special? It depends on how you look at it

Abstract

Recent behavioral data have shown that central nonpredictive gaze direction triggers reflexive shifts of attention toward the gazed-at location (e.g., Friesen & Kingstone, 1998). Friesen and Kingstone suggested that this reflexive orienting effect is unique to biologically relevant stimuli. Three experiments were conducted to test this proposal by comparing the attentional orienting produced by nonpredictive gaze cues (biologically relevant) with the attentional orienting produced by nonpredictive arrow cues (biologicallyirrelevant).Both types of cues produced reflexiveorienting in adults (Experiment 1)and preschoolers (Experiment 2), suggesting that gaze cues are not special

Normal and Impaired Reflexive Orienting of Attention after Central Nonpredictive Cues

“…There was a cueing effect for irrelevant, nonpredictive arrows and for eye gaze, consistently with previous studies that investigated these cues separately (e.g., Tipples, 2002;Hommel et al, 2001;Friesen & Kingstone, 1998) or jointly (Ristic et al, 2002). Digits, instead, did not produce reflexive orienting (discussion of the lack of effect for digit cues is postponed to the General Discussion section).…”

“…Previous studies that separately investigated gaze cues (e.g., Driver et al, 1999;Friesen & Kingstone, 1998) or arrow cues Tipples, 2002;Hommel et al, 2001;Eimer, 1997) found similar orienting effects, whereas studies that directly compared the two types of cue (although in separate blocks) have not provided a firm conclusion (Ristic et al, 2002(Ristic et al, , 2007Gibson & Kingstone, 2006;Friesen et al, 2004;Ricciardelli, Bricolo, Aglioti, & Chelazzi, 2002). A recent fMRI study suggested that orienting to gaze cues and arrow cues was supported by partially distinct cortical networks (Hietanen, Nummenmaa, Nyman, Parkkola, & Hämäläinen, 2006).…”

“…This calls into question the special status of social cues and suggests that a common explanation for these findings is the conveyance of a ''directional meaning,'' regardless of biological relevance (that is, independently of whether the cue consists of gazing eyes or arrows). Initial comparisons between these different cues have shown similar orienting effects in 4-year-old children (Ristic, Friesen, & Kingstone, 2002), and a selective effectiveness of gaze when cueing was counterpredictive of target position (Friesen, Ristic, & Kingstone, 2004), but it is still unclear whether these forms of orienting are domain-specific and to what extent they rely on the two attentional systems discussed above.…”

The eyes have it!: An fMRI investigation

“…However, very recently, Ristic, Friesen, and Kingstone (2002) reported that other stimuli, such as arrows, trigger reflexive shifts in attention in a manner that is behaviourally identical to those triggered by eyes. Nevertheless these authors speculated that reflexive orienting to gaze direction may be subserved by a neural system-the superior temporal sulcus (STS)-that is specialized for processing eyes.…”

“…Recently, however, Ristic, Friesen, and Kingstone (2002) discovered that eyes are not unique in their ability to trigger a reflexive shift in attention based on symbolic directional information. Arrows produced a reflexive attentional shift in healthy children and adults that was indistinguishable from that produced by eyes.…”