Gaze direction and pupil size in schematic face perception
Mon—Casino_1.811—Poster1—2208
Presented by: Frol Sapronov
The ability to perceive and interpret facial cues is fundamental to human social interactions, playing a crucial role in communication. Gaze appears to be one of the most important of these cues. It is believed that understanding another person's gaze has evolved as an essential mechanism for social interaction. Several studies both in schematic faces and real faces have demonstrated that participants can easily identify a person staring at them in the crowd, in contrast to others who are not. Nevertheless, the role of fixational eye movements as well as pupil size in face perception is still unclear. In this study, we are going to investigate the effects of fixation direction (left, right, straight, and verging) and pupil size (big and small). The "faces" will be represented as flesh-colored circles with only eyes. The “faces” will differ only in gaze direction and pupil size, resulting in eight combinations (e.g., small pupils and vergent direction). Based on the Eriksen flanker paradigm, participants will be presented with all eight schematic faces arranged in a circle while having to find the face that matches the one presented at fixation. We hypothesize that faces with vergence fixation, straight fixation, and with big pupils will be found faster than the others.
Keywords: face perception, gaze direction