Spontaneous adoption of the gaze cue's perspective in a 3-D version of the noninformative gaze-cueing paradigm

Abstract

Gaze cueing refers to attention allocation caused by averted gaze of a noninformative gaze cue. Recently, modulation of this effect by the cue's perspective was shown. Prior studies manipulated the perceived gaze cue's ability to see the target by substantial display changes or varying participants' beliefs. Here, we studied whether participants spontaneously adopt perspective in context of minimal stimulus variations. We displayed a gazing head with two objects (placeholders) to its left and right, respectively, and looked for side-general and object-specific cueing. By varying head position in depth, gaze could refer (1) to single objects (head behind objects), (2) only to near objects (head between objects), or (3) to no objects (head in front of objects). We found side-general cueing effects for all head positions. Object-specific cueing occurred for the objects to which gaze could be linked to. We conclude, that participants spontaneously adopted the gaze cue's perspective, but additionally attend to the cued side reflexively.

Keywords:

• Gaze cueing
• Theory of Mind
• Top-down
• Joint attention
• Perspective adoption

Johannes Schulz and Jens R. Helmert were co-financed by the European Social Fund and the Free State of Saxony, Germany, in the framework of the junior research group CogITo.

Johannes Schulz and Jens R. Helmert were co-financed by the European Social Fund and the Free State of Saxony, Germany, in the framework of the junior research group CogITo.

Notes

¹ We thank an anonymous reviewer for the suggestion to combine both relevant IE differences in one independent variable.