title: Social orienting in gaze leading: a mechanism for shared attention.
abstract: Here, we report a novel social orienting response that occurs after viewing averted gaze. We show, in three experiments, that when a person looks from one location to an object, attention then shifts towards the face of an individual who has subsequently followed the person's gaze to that same object. That is, contrary to 'gaze following', attention instead orients in the opposite direction to observed gaze and towards the gazing face. The magnitude of attentional orienting towards a face that 'follows' the participant's gaze is also associated with self-reported autism-like traits. We propose that this gaze leading phenomenon implies the existence of a mechanism in the human social cognitive system for detecting when one's gaze has been followed, in order to establish 'shared attention' and maintain the ongoing interaction.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.
authors.forename: S Gareth
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Edwards
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.
authors.forename: Lisa J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Stephenson
authors.affiliation: Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialisation, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
authors.forename: Mario
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0199-7861
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dalmaso
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK andrew.p.bayliss@uea.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Andrew P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Bayliss
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001288:Attention; D005133:Eye Movements; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation; D011930:Reaction Time; D012919:Social Behavior; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: gaze perception; joint attention; shared attention; social cognition; social orienting