Viewpoint and center of gravity affect eye movements to human faces

Bindemann, M., Scheepers, C. and Burton, A.M. (2009) Viewpoint and center of gravity affect eye movements to human faces. Journal of Vision, 9(2), pp. 1-16. (doi: 10.1167/9.2.7)

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Abstract

In everyday life, human faces are encountered in many different views. Despite this fact, most psychological research has focused on the perception of frontal faces. To address this shortcoming, the current study investigated how different face views are processed, by measuring eye movements to frontal, mid-profile and profile faces during a gender categorization ( Experiment 1) and a free-viewing task ( Experiment 2). In both experiments observers initially fixated the geometric center of a face, independent of face view. This center-of-gravity effect induced a qualitative shift in the features that were sampled across different face views in the time period immediately after stimulus onset. Subsequent eye fixations focused increasingly on specific facial features. At this stage, the eye regions were targeted predominantly in all face views, and to a lesser extent also the nose and the mouth. These findings show that initial saccades to faces are driven by general stimulus properties, before eye movements are redirected to the specific facial features in which observers take an interest. These findings are illustrated in detail by plotting the distribution of fixations, first fixations, and percentage fixations across time.

Item Type:Articles
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Burton, Prof Anthony and Bindemann, Mr Markus and Scheepers, Dr Christoph
Authors: Bindemann, M., Scheepers, C., and Burton, A.M.
Subjects:B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
College/School:College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Psychology & Neuroscience
College of Science and Engineering > School of Psychology
Journal Name:Journal of Vision
Publisher:Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology
ISSN:1534-7362
ISSN (Online):1534-7362
Published Online:09 February 2009

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Project CodeAward NoProject NamePrincipal InvestigatorFunder's NameFunder RefLead Dept
442391Human Face Detection in Natural ScenesAnthony BurtonEconomic & Social Research Council (ESRC)RES-062-23-0389Psychology