Fixation instruction influences gaze cueing

Abstract

Studies have shown that perceiving another person's gaze shift facilitates responses in the direction of the perceived gaze shift. While it is often assumed that participants in these experiments remain fixated on the cue in the cueing interval, eye gaze is not always recorded to confirm this. The data presented here suggest that the effect of gaze cues on responses to peripheral targets depends on whether participants make eye movements prior to the onset of the target. Participants who were required to fixate showed cueing effects at short cue-target intervals, but no cueing at later intervals. Participants who could look around, often chose to do so, and showed the same positive cueing effects at the shorter interval, but negative cueing effects (suggestive of inhibition of return) at the longer interval.