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Social decisions affect neural activity to perceived dynamic gaze - PubMed

Social decisions affect neural activity to perceived dynamic gaze

Marianne Latinus et al. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2015 Nov.

Abstract

Gaze direction, a cue of both social and spatial attention, is known to modulate early neural responses to faces e.g. N170. However, findings in the literature have been inconsistent, likely reflecting differences in stimulus characteristics and task requirements. Here, we investigated the effect of task on neural responses to dynamic gaze changes: away and toward transitions (resulting or not in eye contact). Subjects performed, in random order, social (away/toward them) and non-social (left/right) judgment tasks on these stimuli. Overall, in the non-social task, results showed a larger N170 to gaze aversion than gaze motion toward the observer. In the social task, however, this difference was no longer present in the right hemisphere, likely reflecting an enhanced N170 to gaze motion toward the observer. Our behavioral and event-related potential data indicate that performing social judgments enhances saliency of gaze motion toward the observer, even those that did not result in gaze contact. These data and that of previous studies suggest two modes of processing visual information: a 'default mode' that may focus on spatial information; a 'socially aware mode' that might be activated when subjects are required to make social judgments. The exact mechanism that allows switching from one mode to the other remains to be clarified.

Keywords: N170; averted gaze; direct gaze; social and non-social context; task modulation.

© The Author (2015). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.

Methods. (A) Time line for individual trial structure. A first static face is displayed on the screen. Gaze direction in that first face can be direct (illustrated), intermediate or extreme. The first face is then replaced by a second static face, in which the gaze direction, different from gaze direction in the first face, can be direct, intermediate or extreme (illustrated) in order to create apparent gaze motion. Subjects were instructed to respond while the second face was still on screen. (B) Example of the different apparent motion conditions. The light gray box highlights gaze transition made away from the subjects. The dark gray box highlights gaze transition made toward the subjects. (C) Location of the electrodes of interest (red dots). Data illustrated is the average ERPs across conditions at the latency of the N170.

Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.

Behavioral results. Red bars: non-social task; blue bars: social task. Light colored bars illustrate gaze transition made away from the subjects. Dark colored bars highlight transition made toward the subjects. Error bars represent standard error of mean (SEM). (A) Accuracy. *P < 0.05. Note that accuracy is plotted between 80 and 100%. (B) RTs. *P < 0.01.

Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.

Grand average ERPs for the full transitions [direct-to-extreme and extreme-to-direct—conditions similar to Puce et al. (2000)]. Top panels, red lines: non-social task; bottom panels, blue lines: social task. Light colored lines illustrate gaze transition made away from the subjects. Dark colored lines highlighted transition made toward the subjects. Shaded areas represent the 95% confidence interval built using bootstrap (n = 1000) with replacement of the data under H1.

Fig. 4.
Fig. 4.

Grand average ERPs for the intermediate-to-endpoint transitions (IE and ID—conditions similar to Conty et al. (2007)). Top panels, red lines: non-social task; bottom panels, blue lines: social task. Light colored lines illustrate gaze transition made away from the subjects. Dark colored lines highlighted transition made toward the subjects. Shaded areas represent the 95% confidence interval built using bootstrap (n = 1000) with replacement of the data under H1.

Fig. 5.
Fig. 5.

Grand average ERPs for the endpoint-to-intermediate transitions (direct-to-intermediate and extreme-to-intermediate). Top panels, red lines: non-social task; bottom panels, blue lines: social task. Light colored lines illustrate gaze transition made away from the subjects. Dark colored lines highlighted transition made toward the subjects. Shaded areas represent the 95% confidence interval built using bootstrap (n = 1000) with replacement of the data under H1.

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