Sex differences for the recognition of direct versus averted gaze faces

Goodman, Laura R.; Phelan, Heather L.; Johnson, Shannon A.

doi:10.1080/09658211.2011.651089

Cited by 13 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…To our knowledge, eye‐tracking methods have not been employed to determine whether or not gaze‐following accounts for the difference between recognition of direct‐ and averted‐gaze faces in typically developing individuals. However, in a recent study of adult control participants, we [Goodman, Phelan, & Johnson, ] employed a centrally located attention probe during the learning phase of this task. We hypothesized that if participants were following gaze on averted gaze trials, detection of probes would be worse and response times would be slower compared with the performance on direct‐gaze trials.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Gaze Direction in Face Memory in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Zaki

Johnson

2013

Autism Research

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We tested the hypothesis that the direction of gaze of target faces may play a role in reported face recognition deficits in those with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In previous studies, typically developing children and adults better remembered faces in which the eyes were gazing directly at them compared with faces in which the eyes were averted. In the current study, high-functioning children and adolescents with an ASD and age- and IQ-matched typically developing controls were shown a series of pictures of faces in a study phase. These pictures were of individuals whose gaze was either directed straight ahead or whose gaze was averted to one side. We tested the memory for these study faces in a recognition task in which the faces were shown with their eyes closed. The typically developing group better remembered the direct-gaze faces, whereas the ASD participants did not show this effect. These results imply that there may be an important link between gaze direction and face recognition abilities in ASD.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Gaze Direction in Face Memory in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Zaki

Johnson

2013

Autism Research

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“…These differences were observed specifically in within-task learning and recognition paradigms 15–17 or simultaneous perceptual matching paradigms 6,18,19 , with females showing better performance than males. Further, superior recognition of unfamiliar faces in females has shown to be highly robust and invariant to face view 20 , gaze direction 21 , face-race 22,23 as well as duration of presentation 15,24 . Studies have also reported own-gender biases, with females being consistently better at recognizing female than male faces 6,24,25 and less consistently reported a male own-gender bias 26,27 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender Differences in Familiar Face Recognition and the Influence of Sociocultural Gender Inequality

Mishra

Likitlersuang

Wilmer

et al. 2019

Sci Rep

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Are gender differences in face recognition influenced by familiarity and socio-cultural factors? Previous studies have reported gender differences in processing unfamiliar faces, consistently finding a female advantage and a female own-gender bias. However, researchers have recently highlighted that unfamiliar faces are processed less efficiently than familiar faces, which have more robust, invariant representations. To-date, no study has examined whether gender differences exist for familiar face recognition. The current study addressed this by using a famous faces task in a large, web-based sample of > 2000 participants across different countries. We also sought to examine if differences varied by socio-cultural gender equality within countries. When examining raw accuracy as well when controlling for fame, the results demonstrated that there were no participant gender differences in overall famous face accuracy, in contrast to studies of unfamiliar faces. There was also a consistent own-gender bias in male but not female participants. In countries with low gender equality, including the USA, females showed significantly better recognition of famous female faces compared to male participants, whereas this difference was abolished in high gender equality countries. Together, this suggests that gender differences in recognizing unfamiliar faces can be attenuated when there is enough face learning and that sociocultural gender equality can drive gender differences in familiar face recognition.

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“…Often eye contact helps all participants recognize a face, regardless of the their gender (Macrae et al., 2002; Hood et al., 2003; Mason et al., 2004; Smith et al., 2006). However, in some contexts, one gender will benefit from eye contact, but the other will not (e.g., Otteson and Otteson, 1980; Goodman et al., 2012; Helminen et al., 2016). Finally, researchers have observed gender differences in how attentive participants are to the eyes (Connellan et al., 2000; Lutchmaya et al., 2002) and the nonverbal signals of others (Hall, 1978; Rosenthal et al., 1979; McClure, 2000), as well as how responsive participants are to these signals (e.g., females maintain more distance between themselves and a virtual agent that makes eye contact than males; Bailenson et al., 2001; Bayliss et al., 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Socially Communicative Eye Contact and Gender Affect Memory

et al. 2019

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Because of their value as a socially communicative cue, researchers have strived to understand how the gaze of other people influences a variety of cognitive processes. Recent work in social attention suggests that the use of images of people in laboratory studies, as a substitute for real people, may not effectively test socially communicative aspects of eye gaze. As attention affects many other cognitive processes, it is likely that social attention between real individuals could also affect other cognitive processes, such as memory. However, from previous work alone, it is unclear whether, and if so how, socially communicative eye gaze affects memory. The present studies test the assumption that socially communicative aspects of eye gaze may impact memory by manipulating the eye gaze of a live speaker in the context of a traditional recognition paradigm used frequently in the laboratory. A female (Experiment 1) or male (Experiment 2) investigator read words aloud and varied whether eye contact was, or was not, made with a participant. With both female and male investigators, eye contact improved word recognition only for female participants and hindered word recognition in male participants. When a female investigator prolonged their eye contact (Experiment 3) to provide a longer opportunity to both observe and process the investigator’s eye gaze, the results replicated the findings from Experiments 1 and 2. The findings from Experiments 1–3 suggest that females interpret and use the investigator’s eye gaze differently than males. When key aspects from the previous experiments were replicated in a noncommunicative situation (i.e., when a video of a speaker is used instead of a live speaker; Experiment 4), the memory effects observed previously in response to eye gaze were eliminated. Together, these studies suggest that it is the socially communicative aspects of eye gaze from a real person that influence memory. The findings reveal the importance of using social cues that are communicative in nature (e.g., real people) when studying the relationship between social attention and memory.

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Sex differences for the recognition of direct versus averted gaze faces

Cited by 13 publications

References 28 publications

The Role of Gaze Direction in Face Memory in Autism Spectrum Disorder

The Role of Gaze Direction in Face Memory in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Gender Differences in Familiar Face Recognition and the Influence of Sociocultural Gender Inequality

Socially Communicative Eye Contact and Gender Affect Memory

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