Illumination and gaze effects on face evaluation: The Bi-AGI database.

Face evaluation and first impression generation can be affected by multiple face elements such as invariant facial features, gaze direction and environmental context; however, the composite modulation of eye gaze and illumination on faces of different gender and ages has not been previously investigated. We aimed at testing how these different facial and contextual features affect ratings of social attributes. Thus, we created and validated the Bi-AGI Database, a freely available new set of male and female face stimuli varying in age across lifespan from 18 to 87 years, gaze direction and illumination conditions. Judgments on attractiveness, femininity-masculinity, dominance and trustworthiness were collected for each stimulus. Results evidence the interaction of the different variables in modulating social trait attribution, in particular illumination differently affects ratings across age, gaze and gender, with less impact on older adults and greater effect on young faces.

Social categorization and joint attention: Interacting effects of age, sex, and social status.

In the present study, we examine how person categorization conveyed by the combination of multiple cues modulates joint attention. In three experiments, we tested the combinatory effect of age, sex, and social status on gaze-following behaviour and pro-social attitudes. In Experiments 1 and 2, young adults were required to perform an instructed saccade towards left or right targets while viewing a to-be-ignored distracting face (female or male) gazing left or right, that could belong to a young, middle-aged, or elderly adult of high or low social status. Social status was manipulated by semantic knowledge (Experiment 1) or through visual appearance (Experiment 2). Results showed a clear combinatory effect of person perception cues on joint attention (JA). Specifically, our results showed that age and sex cues interacted with social status information depending on the modality through which it was conveyed. In Experiment 3, we further investigated our results by testing whether the identities used in Experiments 1 and 2 triggered different pro-social behaviour. The results of Experiment 3 showed that the identities resulting as more distracting in Experiments 1 and 2 were also perceived as more in need and prompt helping behaviour. Taken together, our evidence shows a combinatorial effect of age, sex, and social status in modulating the gaze following behaviour, highlighting a complex and dynamic interplay between person categorization and joint attention.

Can Monetary Reward Modulate Social Attention?

Selective visual attention is a primary cognitive function, which allows the selection of the most relevant stimuli in the environment by prioritizing their processing. Several studies showed that this process can be influenced by both social signals, such as gaze direction (i.e., the Gaze Cueing Effect, GCE) and by the motivational valence of gratifying stimuli, such as monetary rewards. The aim of this study was to explore whether GCE could be modulated by a monetary reward. To this end, we created an experiment in which participants performed a gaze cuing task before and after an implicit learning task aiming to induce an association between gaze direction and monetary reward (experimental condition), or after a perceptual task (control condition). Statistical analyses were conducted following both a frequentist and a Bayesian approach. Results supported previous findings showing the presence of the GCE, i.e., faster responses in congruent trials when the target appeared in the gazed-at location. Interestingly, our results did not reveal significant differences among the conditions. Therefore, contrary to what was reported by previous attentional orienting studies with non-social stimuli, monetary reward does not seem to be able to modulate (or interfere with) the orienting of attention mediated by gaze direction as measured by the GCE. Taken together our results suggest that social signals such as gaze direction have a greater impact than monetary reward in orienting selective attention.