Explicit vs. implicit spatial processing in arrow vs. eye-gaze spatial congruency effects

Abstract

Arrows and gaze stimuli lead to opposite spatial congruency effects. While standard congruency effects are observed for arrows (faster responses for congruent conditions), responses are faster when eye-gaze stimuli are presented on the opposite side of the gazed-at location (incongruent trials), leading to a reversed congruency effect (RCE). Here, we explored the effects of implicit vs. explicit processing of arrows and eye-gaze direction. Participants were required to identify the direction (explicit task) or the colour (implicit task) of left or right looking/pointing gaze or arrows, presented to either the left or right of the fixation point. When participants responded to the direction of stimuli, standard congruency effects for arrows and RCE for eye-gaze stimuli were observed. However, when participants responded to the colour of stimuli, no congruency effects were observed. These results suggest that it is necessary to explicitly pay attention to the direction of eye-gaze and arrows for the congruency effect to occur. The same pattern of data was observed when participants responded either manually or verbally, demonstrating that manual motor components are not responsible for the results observed. These findings are not consistent with some hypotheses previously proposed to explain the RCE observed with eye-gaze stimuli and, therefore, call for an alternative plausible hypothesis.

Target–background segregation in a spatial interference paradigm reveals shared and specific attentional mechanisms triggered by gaze and arrows.

“…For example, the original explanation for the effect (Cañadas & Lupiáñez, 2012; Marotta et al, 2018) proposed that participants interpret gaze-oriented inward (i.e., on incongruent trials) as a face potentially making eye contact with them. Nevertheless, no reversed congruency effect was observed with gaze in a series of experiments in which participants had to discriminate the color of the eyes (rather than gaze direction; Narganes-Pineda et al, 2021), the results in this implicit task being inconsistent with the eye-contact hypothesis, and suggesting that the automatic processing of the eye-gaze direction (Driver et al, 1999) does not affect the behavioral outcomes of our paradigm. Alternatively, and without evoking any “looking at me” attribution, Edwards et al (2020) proposed that gaze-oriented inward might generate an episode of joint attention where both the participant and the gaze cue look at fixation, facilitating participants’ performance on incongruent trials.…”

“…However, recent evidence with the paradigm has made important advances. The effect occurs later in processing (Marotta et al, 2019) and later in the development (Aranda-Martín et al, 2021), and seems more related to the capacity of gaze to attract attention out of the task in congruent trials (Hemmerich et al, 2021), instead of resulting from an eye-contact attribution (Narganes-Pineda et al, 2021) or a joint attention episode (Aranda-Martín et al, 2021). In addition, the present study supports that this social-specific effect coexists with a domain-general spatial orienting mechanism commonly evoked by eye gaze and nonsocial stimuli like arrows.…”

Gaze elicits social and nonsocial attentional orienting: An interplay of shared and unique conflict processing mechanisms.

“…Whereas, surprisingly, with social stimuli (full faces and cropped eyes), slower RTs and more errors were observed for congruent versus incongruent trials. This effect observed on social stimuli, referred to by the authors as reversed congruency effect (Cañadas & Lupiáñez, 2012), has been repeatedly replicated since then (Aranda-Martín et al, 2022; Edwards et al, 2020; Ishikawa et al, 2021; Jones, 2015; Marotta et al, 2018, 2019; Narganes-Pineda et al, 2022; Román-Caballero et al, 2021a, 2021b; Torres-Marín et al, 2017). Recently, the same pattern of standard and reversed congruency effects, for arrows and gaze, respectively, has been replicated through a within-participant counterbalanced blocked design (Marotta et al, 2018).…”

Eye gaze is not special: The reversed spatial Stroop effect on gaze and tongue targets

“…the right-gazing target at the right), they suggested that the target led observers' attention away from the stimulus display area, slowing down the responses in congruent trials. Although it is still debated which explanation is more plausible (Aranda-Martín et al, 2022;Narganes-Pineda et al, 2022;Tanaka et al, 2022), most importantly, these accounts emphasise the unique status of eye gaze in social communication.…”