Measuring the stare-in-the-crowd effect: a new paradigm to study social perception

Abstract

Social perceptual ability plays a key role in successful social functioning. Social interactions demand a number of simultaneous skills, one of which is the detection of self-directed gaze. This study demonstrates how the ability to accurately detect self-directed gaze, called the stare-in-thecrowd effect, can be studied using a new eye-tracking paradigm. A set of images was developed to test this effect using a group of healthy undergraduate students. Eye movements and pupil size were tracked while they viewed these images. Participants also completed behavioral measures about themselves. Results show that self-directed gaze results in significantly more looking by participants. Behavioral predictors of gaze behaviors were not identified, likely given the health of the sample. However, correlations with variables are reported to explore in future research.

Visual preferences for direct‐gaze faces in infant macaques (Macaca mulatta) with limited face exposure

“…Eye contact is a powerful way of establishing a social connection, signaling readiness for social interaction. In human adults, faces with eye contact are located more rapidly and processed preferentially compared to those with averted gaze (Conty, Tijus, Hugueville, Coelho, & George, ; Crehan & Althoff, ; Doi & Shinohara, ; Framorando, George, Kerzel, & Burra, ; Senju & Johnson, ; Yokoyama, Sakai, Noguchi, & Kita, ). This preferential attraction to direct‐gaze faces is evident early in development, prior to substantial postnatal experience.…”

Does the implicit models of leadership influence the scanning of other-race faces in adults?

“…Future research needs to investigate the relationship of stimulating and engaging leaders to the implicit leadership factors and movement of followers’ eyes. After all, our gaze is a key tool in initiating, sustaining and ending social interactions [79]. We hope the findings of this study encourage others to investigate further the relationship between implicit leadership models and the cognitive processes influence the rating of others.…”

“…“An individual’s gaze is a key tool in initiating, sustaining and ending social interactions” [79]. Such a tool enables the intention of others, regarding collaboration, coordination, social learning, dominance, and leadership to be understood [35, 80, 81].…”

Attention neglects a stare-in-the-crowd: Unanticipated consequences of prediction-error coding

“…This is distinct from the manipulation employed by other studies (e.g., Conty et al, 2006;Mares et al, 2016) in which the amount of sclera is not equated in the two conditions. One further report (Crehan & Althoff, 2015) did manipulate stimuli in this manner, finding increased number and duration of saccades toward direct gaze stimuli. However, they only included conditions in which a single direct gaze was presented among multiple averted gazes; they did not present a single averted gaze among direct.…”