Do the eyes really have it? Dynamic allocation of attention when viewing moving faces

Abstract

What controls gaze allocation during dynamic face perception? We monitored participants' eye movements while they watched videos featuring close-ups of pedestrians engaged in interviews. Contrary to previous findings using static displays, we observed no general preference to fixate eyes. Instead, gaze was dynamically directed to the eyes, nose, or mouth in response to the currently depicted event. Fixations to the eyes increased when a depicted face made eye contact with the camera, while fixations to the mouth increased when the face was speaking. When a face moved quickly, fixations concentrated on the nose, suggesting that it served as a spatial anchor. To better understand the influence of auditory speech during dynamic face perception, we presented participants with a second version of the same video, in which the audio speech track had been removed, leaving just the background music. Removing the speech signal modulated gaze allocation by decreasing fixations to faces generally and the mouth specifically. Since the task was to simply rate the likeability of the videos, the decrease of attention allocation to the mouth region implies a reduction of the functional benefits of mouth fixations given that speech comprehension was not required. Together, these results argue against a general prioritization of the eyes and support a more functional, information-seeking use of gaze allocation during dynamic face viewing.

Recognizing Dynamic Faces in Malaysian Chinese Participants

“…Additionally, there were more fixations for the mouth in the dynamic face recognition task, a pattern consistent with previous eye-tracking study investigating participants' judgments about scenarios based on recorded videos of actors' natural reactions (Pillai et al, 2012). Although it is possible that participants may be attracted to the mouth based on visual saliency, a previous eye-tracking study has suggested that fixations are modulated by the degree of task-relevant information a feature provides, indicating that the mouth may provide useful cues for identifying faces (Vo et al, 2012).…”

Eye tracking reveals a crucial role for facial motion in recognition of faces by infants.

“…More importantly, we found that the specific eye movement pattern corresponding to moving faces was related to infant face recognition performance. The present study, along with some recent adult facial movement studies (e.g., Võ et al, 2012), suggest that how individuals process moving faces is not necessarily predicable from how static faces are processed. Instead, this work shows that even subtle facial movements, like chewing/blinking, can dramatically affect infant face encoding, which consequently influences recognition performance.…”

“…Recent studies found that adults not only scan moving faces differently from static ones (Võ, Smith, Mital, & Henderson, 2012), but also are sensitive to facial movement. Adults use facial movement information for judging face gender, kinship, and expression (de la Rosa, Giese, Bülthoff, & Curio, 2013; Hill & Johnston, 2001; Horstmann & Ansorge, 2009; Knappmeyer, Thornton, & Bülthoff, 2003; Rubenstein, 2005; Wilcox & Clayton, 1968).…”

The dual function of social gaze

“…For example, while studies conducted in laboratories found that people tend to look predominantly to targets' eyes (e.g., Foulsham et al, 2010;Smith & Mital, 2013;Vo, Smith, Mital, & Henderson, 2012), studies conducted in real life situations found that people tend to avoid direct eye contact with targets (e.g., Gallup et al, 2012;Laidlaw, Foulsham, Kuhn, & Kingstone, 2011). Indeed, gazing behavior in real life is influenced by the potential for social interactions (Laidlaw et al, 2011), joint attention (Gallup et al, 2012), and social norms (Wu, Bischof, & Kingstone, 2013).…”