The mutual influence of gaze and head orientation in the analysis of social attention direction

Three experiments are reported that investigate the hypothesis that head orientation and gaze direction interact in the processing of another individual's direction of social attention. A Stroop-type interference paradigm was adopted, in which gaze and head cues were placed into conflict. In separate blocks of trials, participants were asked to make speeded keypress responses contingent on either the direction of gaze, or the orientation of the bead displayed in a digitized photograph of a male face. In Experiments 1 and 2, head and gaze cues showed symmetrical interference effects. Compared with congruent arrangements, incongruent head cues slowed responses to gaze cues, and incongruent gaze cues slowed responses to head cues, suggesting that head and gaze are mutually influential in the analysis of social attention direction. This mutuality was also evident in a cross-modal version of the task (Experiment 3) where participants responded to spoken directional words whilst ignoring the head/gaze images. It is argued that these interference effects arise from the independent influences of gaze and head orientation on decisions concerning social attention direction.