The effects of genuine eye contact on visuospatial and selective attention.

Hietanen, Jari K.; Myllyneva, Aki; Helminen, Terhi M.; Lyyra, Pessi

doi:10.1037/xge0000199

Cited by 34 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…The observation that, in Experiment 2, eye contact led to an overall decrement in saccadic latencies resembles the pattern described in a recent study reporting that participants reacted more readily to peripheral targets after making eye contact with a real individual 54 . According to the authors, this might be due to the enhanced levels of arousal that are typically elicited by eye contact episodes which, in turn, would lead participants to be more prone to react to the onset of visual stimuli.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Eye contact boosts the reflexive component of overt gaze following

Dalmaso

Alessi

Castelli

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Establishing eye contact with an individual can subsequently lead to a stronger gaze-mediated orienting effect. However, studies exploring this phenomenon have, so far, only assessed manual responses and focused on covert attention -namely, without eye movements. Here, in two experiments, we explored for the first time whether eye contact can also impact on overt attention in an oculomotor task. This approach has two main advantages, in that it relies on more sensitive, online measures of attention allocation and it better mimics real life settings. Participants performed leftwards and rightwards eye movements in response to a central cue. Furthermore, a task-irrelevant central face established -or not -eye contact with the participant, and then averted its gaze either leftwards or rightwards. Hence, eye movement direction was either congruent or incongruent with that of the gaze stimulus. In both experiments, a gaze following behaviour emerged -specifically, smaller saccadic latencies and a greater accuracy emerged on congruent than on incongruent trials -but its magnitude was not modulated by eye contact. However, in Experiment 2 -in which the different eye contact conditions were presented intermixed rather than blocked, thus making eye contact contextually salient -eye contact led to an overall decrement of saccadic latencies and enhanced the reflexive component of gaze following. Taken together, these results provide novel evidence indicating that eye contact can impact on both eye movements programming and overt gaze following mechanisms, at least when eye contact is made contextually salient.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Eye contact boosts the reflexive component of overt gaze following

Dalmaso

Alessi

Castelli

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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“…Our results are consistent with previous studies demonstrating the influence of specific social cues during interactions (such as direct eye gaze) on learning, that is, in typical participants, direct eye gaze enhances cognitive performance. Although the mechanisms behind this relation seem to be very complex, involving the effects on motivation, arousal, and attention (Hietanen et al., ; Kuhl, ; Kylliäinen et al., ), we demonstrated that MG during interactions is related to the development of attention disengagement. We propose that the effect of MG on attention disengagement reported here may be driven by the impact of MG on the orienting network, which includes gaze disengagement and shifting (Johnson et al., ; Colombo, ; Johnson & de Haan, , chapter 5) and selective attention (Mesulam, ).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 53%

“…Direct gaze of a live model (contrary to a picture) elicits higher levels of autonomic arousal than averted gaze or closed eyes. In consequence, participants show faster discrimination of visual targets and faster performance in the Stroop task in the direct gaze condition compared to the averted gaze condition (Hietanen, Myllyneva, Helminen, & Lyyra, ).…”

Section: Mutual Gaze and Learning In The Context Of Social Interactionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mutual Gaze During Early Mother–Infant Interactions Promotes Attention Control Development

2017

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Efficient attention control is fundamental for infant cognitive development, but its early precursors are not well understood. This study investigated whether dyadic visual attention during parent-infant interactions at 5 months of age predicts the ability to control attention at 11 months of age (N = 55). Total duration of mutual gaze (MG) was assessed during free play at 5 months, while infant attention control was measured in a gap-and-overlap task at 5 and 11 months. MG predicted attention disengagement at 11 months. Infants who spent more time in MG at 5 months showed better attention control at 11 months. These results provide important insights into developmental pathways linking visual behavior in dyadic interactions with infants' subsequent attention skills.

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“…Specifically, they have suggested that attention explains the startle reflex attenuation to probes presented with short delays after foreground stimuli (SOAs shorter than 300 ms); but at longer delays (SOAs longer than 800 ms), when the foreground stimuli have been recognized and encoded, the defensive or appetitive motivational system is activated and modulates the reflex. Second, a previous study from our laboratory showed that discrimination of peripheral, irrelevant visual stimuli presented after live faces (using the same methodology as in FIGU RE 3 Mean HR changes to the startle probe when viewing direct and downward gaze within the 6-s time interval across the short and long SOAs the present study) was more enhanced after direct than averted gaze (Hietanen, Myllyneva, Helminen, & Lyyra, 2016). The result was explained by the effect of direct gaze on arousal and attention.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 53%

Modulation of the eyeblink and cardiac startle reflexes by genuine eye contact

et al. 2017

Self Cite

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Is another person's direct gaze an inherently positive or negative stimulus? The present study employed the startle reflex methodology to investigate individuals' automatic reactions to another person's direct and averted gaze. In the study, participants' eyeblink startle and cardiac reflexes elicited by a high-intensity acoustic noise stimulus were measured in the context of viewing a live model's direct and downward gaze. Both the eyeblink electromyographic and electrocardiographic data revealed that the startle reflex was modulated by gaze direction. Direct gaze attenuated the eyeblink startle and cardiac reflexes to the acoustic probes compared to those elicited in the context of a downward gaze. These results indicate that the defense reflex is weaker when presented in the context of direct versus downward gaze, and thus suggest that another individual's direct gaze, compared to averted gaze, automatically elicits more positive affective responses in the viewer.

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The effects of genuine eye contact on visuospatial and selective attention.

Cited by 34 publications

References 14 publications

Eye contact boosts the reflexive component of overt gaze following

Eye contact boosts the reflexive component of overt gaze following

Mutual Gaze During Early Mother–Infant Interactions Promotes Attention Control Development

Modulation of the eyeblink and cardiac startle reflexes by genuine eye contact

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