It's all in the eyes: neural responses to socially significant gaze shifts.
Gaze direction signals another's focus of social attention. Here, we recorded event-related potentials to a multiface display where a gaze aversion created three different social scenarios involving social attention, mutual gaze exchange, and gaze avoidance. N170 was unaffected by social scenario. P350 latency was the shortest in social attention and mutual gaze exchange, whereas P500 was thelargest for gaze avoidance. Our data suggest that neural activity after 300 ms poststimulus may index processes associated with extracting social meaning, whereas that earlier than 300 ms may index processing of gaze change independent of social context.
Carrick
Olivia K
OK
Center for Advanced Imaging, West Virginia University School of Medicine, Morgantown, West Virginia 26506-9236, USA.
Thompson
James C
JC
Epling
James A
JA
Puce
Aina
A
D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005133:Eye Movements; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012919:Social Behavior