Gaze-driven orienting of attention across cultures

Summary Quickly and correctly receiving and interpreting the information transmitted from the eyes of others is an essential cognitive ability for humans. Studies have shown that observers can automatically shift their attention in the direction signalled by the averted gaze. This thesis focused on the modulatory effect of ethnicity on gaze-driven orienting of attention, particularly under a cross-cultural context. In Chapter 1, we give a background introduction to gaze-driven orienting of attention and its social modulators. Next, in Chapter 2, the focus is to explore the modulatory effect of ethnicity on gaze-driven orienting in Caucasian and Asian individuals. In particular, five experiments are presented which have been conducted by applying the gaze-cueing paradigm to investigate the influence of faces belonging to different ethnicities on the gaze-cueing effect in Italian and Chinese participants. The results showed that White individuals exhibited a stronger gaze-cueing effect for White rather than Black faces, but they exhibited a similar gaze-cueing effect for White and Asian faces. As for the Asian individuals, they showed a stronger gaze-cueing effect for White (outgroup) rather than Asian (ingroup) faces. It is the first time that an asymmetric gaze-cueing effect was reported in Asian individuals. Thus, in Chapter 3, an eye-tracking technique and the oculomotor interference paradigm were adopted to further investigate this phenomenon. The results from two eye movement experiments revealed consistent patterns, similar to what we found in the experiments illustrated in Chapter 2, suggesting that the social knowledge activated by the ethnicity of the face (e.g., perceived social status of the different ethnic groups) plays a role in modulating gaze-driven orienting. Finally, in Chapter 4, the influence of masked faces on gaze-cueing effect in different cultural contexts was investigated through online experiments, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The results showed that the gaze-cueing effect emerged irrespective of whether masked or unmasked faces were used, in both Italian and Chinese individuals. Chapter 5 is dedicated to highlighting and summarizing our findings, discussing the limitations of our work, and identifying future routes by using different experimental designs and new techniques with the aim of extending upon the present results.