Magnetoencephalographic evidence of early processing of direction of gaze in humans

Despite the crucial importance of direction of gaze in social interactions, it is only recently that there has been interest in human brain responses to gaze direction. Using full-head magnetoencephalography, we investigated the correlates of direction of gaze in full faces and in eyes-only stimuli, measuring the early face-responsive component between 145 and 225 ms. Faces with eyes forward or averted had larger responses than faces with eyes up or closed. For eyes-only stimuli the shortest latencies were seen for eyes averted and the smallest amplitudes were seen for eyes closed. The data were explained by two dipoles in inferior-temporal regions, which showed greater activation for upright faces than face parts or inverted faces, as well as some sensitivity to direction of gaze in this very early stage of processing. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.