title: The Role of Global and Local Visual Information during Gaze-Cued Orienting of Attention.
abstract: Gaze direction is an important social communication tool. Global and local visual information are known to play specific roles in processing socially relevant information from a face. The current study investigated whether global visual information has a primary role during gaze-cued orienting of attention and, as such, may influence quality of interaction. Adults performed a gaze-cueing task in which a centrally presented face cued (valid or invalid) the location of a peripheral target through a gaze shift. We measured brain activity (electroencephalography) towards the cue and target and behavioral responses (manual and saccadic reaction times) towards the target. The faces contained global (i.e. lower spatial frequencies), local (i.e. higher spatial frequencies), or a selection of both global and local (i.e. mid-band spatial frequencies) visual information. We found a gaze cue-validity effect (i.e. valid versus invalid), but no interaction effects with spatial frequency content. Furthermore, behavioral responses towards the target were in all cue conditions slower when lower spatial frequencies were not present in the gaze cue. These results suggest that whereas gaze-cued orienting of attention can be driven by both global and local visual information, global visual information determines the speed of behavioral responses towards other entities appearing in the surrounding of gaze cue stimuli.
authors: Department of Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.|Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.|Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, University Medical Center, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors: Nicolette M
authors: NM
authors: Munsters
authors: Department of Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.|Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors: Carlijn
authors: C
authors: van den Boomen
authors: Department of Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors: Ignace T C
authors: IT
authors: Hooge
authors: Department of Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.|Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.|Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, University Medical Center, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors: Chantal
authors: C
authors: Kemner
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005145:Face; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012438:Saccades / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult