How does perceiving eye direction modulate emotion recognition?

Niedenthal et al. postulate that eye contact with the expresser of an emotion automatically initiates embodied simulation. Our commentary explores the generality of such an eye contact effect for emotions other than happiness. Based on the appraisal theory of emotion, we propose that embodied simulation may be reinforced by mutual or averted gaze as a function of emotional contex

Investigating Eye Contact Effect on People’s Name Retrieval in Normal Aging and in Alzheimer’s Disease

Difficulty in recalling people’s name is one of the most universally experienced changes in old age and would also constitute one of the earliest symptom of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Direct gaze, i.e., another individual’s gaze directed to the observer that leads to eye contact, has been shown to improve memory for faces and concomitant verbal information. Here, we investigated whether this effect extends to memory for Face-Name association and can thus enhance names’ retrieval in normal aging and in AD, at the early stage of the disease. Twenty AD patients, 20 older adults and 25 young adults participated in our study. Subjects were presented with faces displaying either direct or averted gaze in association with a name presented orally. They were then asked to perform a surprise recognition test for each pair of stimuli, in a sequential fashion (i.e., first categorizing a face as old or new and then associating a name using a forced-choice procedure). Results showed that direct gaze does not improve memory for Face-Name association. Yet, we observed an overall direct gaze memory effect over faces and names independently, across our populations, showing that eye contact enhances the encoding of concomitantly presented stimuli. Our results are the first empirical evidence that eye contact benefits memory throughout the course of aging and lead to better delimit the actual power of eye contact on memory

Watching Eyes effects: When others meet the self

International audienc

Measuring gaze and arrow cuing effects with a short test adapted to brain damaged patients with unilateral spatial neglect: A preliminary study

People with left unilateral spatial neglect (USN) following a right brain lesion show difficulty in orienting their attention toward stimuli presented on the left. However, cuing the stimuli with gaze direction or a pointing arrow can help some of them to compensate for this difficulty. In order to build a tool that helps to identify these patients, we needed a short version of the paradigm classically used to test gaze and arow cuing effects in healthy adults, adapted to the capacities of patients with severe attention deficit. Here, we tested the robustness of the cuing effects measured by such a short version in 48 young adult healthy participants, 46 older healthy participants, 10 patients with left USN following a right brain lesion (USN+), and 10 patients with right brain lesions but no USN (USN–). We observed gaze and arrow cuing effects in all populations, independently of age and presence or absence of a right brain lesion. In the neglect field, the USN+ group showed event greater cuing effect than older healthy participants and the USN– group. We showed that gaze and arrow cuing effects are powerful enough to be detected in a very short test adapted to the capacities of older patients with severe attention deficits, which increases their applicability in rehabilitation settings. We further concluded that our test is a suitable basis to develop a tool that will help neuropsychologists to identify USN patients who respond to gaze and/or arrow cuing in their neglect field

Look at me, I'll remember you: the perception of self-relevant social cues enhances memory and right hippocampal activity

International audienceBeing looked at by a person enhances the subsequent memorability of her/his identity. Here, we tested the specificity of this effect and its underlying brain processes. We manipulated three social cues displayed by an agent: Gaze Direction (Direct/Averted), Emotional Expression (Anger/Neutral), and Pointing gesture (Presence/Absence). Our behavioral experiment showed that direct as compared with averted gaze perception enhanced subsequent retrieval of face identity. Similar effect of enhanced retrieval was found when pointing finger was absent as compared with present but not for anger as compared with neutral expression. The fMRI results revealed amygdala activity for both Anger and Direct gaze conditions, suggesting emotional arousal. Yet, the right hippocampus, known to play a role in self-relevant memory processes, was only revealed during direct gaze perception. Further investigations suggest that right hippocampal activity was maximal for the most self-relevant social event (i.e. actor expressing anger and pointing toward the participant with direct gaze). Altogether, our results suggest that the perception of self-relevant social cues such as direct gaze automatically prompts "self-relevant memory" processes

De la perception de la direction du regard à la perception du contact visuel (études comportementales et électrophysiologiques chez l'Homme)

Le contact par le regard apparaît intuitivement comme un signal fort dans nos interactions sociales. Au niveau empirique, l'examen des comportements de regard de l'être humain suggère que le contact visuel est une des clés du développement des représentations sociales. Cette thèse vise à déterminer si la perception du regard direct (établissant un contact visuel avec le sujet) fait appel à des processus particuliers et si le contact par le regard peut être conceptualisé comme une catégorie naturelle de stimulus social dans la perception humaine adulte. Cette question est abordée sous l'angle des neurosciences cognitives et de la psychologie sociale. Dans cette perspective, une catégorie de stimuli sociaux réfère à trois critères: i) la perception de ces stimuli doit faire l'objet de traitements cognitifs particuliers ; ii) elle doit être associée à un marqueur cérébral spécifique ; iii) elle doit entraîner des réponses comportementales automatiques. Les travaux présentés dans cette thèse explorent successivement ces trois critères, à l'aide d'expériences comportementales et électrophysiologiques. Dans leur ensemble, les études confirment toutes l'existence d'asymétries de traitement lors de la perception de regards directs versus déviés. Ces asymétries conduisent à accorder une priorité au contact visuel dans la compétition pour les ressources cognitives. Finalement nos résultats convergent avec un modèle du développement des aptitudes sociales qui postule l'existence d'un module de traitement spécialisé dans l'attention mutuelle et confirment que parmi toutes les directions de regard, le contact par le regard forme une catégorie à part.Intuitively, eye contact is seen as an essential cue during social interactions. The empirical examination of gaze behaviour in human beings suggests that eye contact is a key of the development of social representations. This PhD thesis aims at determining whether direct gaze (that establishes eye contact with the subject) triggers particular perceptive processes and can be conceptualized as a natural category of social stimulus in human adult perception. This issue is tackled from the perspectives of cognitive neuroscience and social psychology. Within this framework, a category of social stimuli refers to three criteria: i) the perception of these stimuli must induce particular cognitive processes; ii) it must be associated to some specific cerebral markers; iii) it must induce automatic behavioural responses. The studies presented explore these three criteria successively, with behavioural and electrophysiological experiments. Overall, all the studies confirm the existence of processing asymmetries during the perception of direct versus averted gaze. These asymmetries result in prioritizing gaze contact processing in the competition for cognitive resources. Finally, our results concords with a model of the development of social abilities which postulates the existence of a cognitive module specialized in mutual attention, and they confirm that among all gaze directions, gaze contact constitute a special stimulus category.ST DENIS-BU PARIS8 (930662101) / SudocSudocFranceF

How does perceiving eye direction modulate emotion recognition?

International audienc

Social Contact Enhances Bodily Self-Awareness

International audienceHuman self‐awareness is arguably the mostimportant and revealing question of modern sciences. Converging theoretical perspectives link self awareness and social abilities in human beings. In particular, mutual engagement during social interactions—or social contact—would boost self‐ awareness.Yet, empirical evidence forthis effectis scarce.We recently showed thatthe perception of eye contactinduces enhanced bodily self‐ awareness. Here, we aimed at extending these findings by testing the influence of social contactin auditory and tactile modalities, in orderto demonstrate that social contact enhances bodily self‐awareness irrespective of sensory modality. In a first experiment, participants were exposed to hearing their own first name (as compared to another unfamiliar name and noise). In a second experiment, human touch (as compared to brush touch and no‐touch) was used as the social contact cue. In both experiments, participants demonstrated more accurate rating of their bodily reactions in response to emotional pictures following the social contact condition—a proxy of bodily self‐awareness. Further analyses indicated thatthe effect of social contact was comparable across tactile, auditory and visual modalities.These results provide the first direct empirical evidence in support ofthe essential social nature of human self‐awareness

L'exploration des signaux non verbaux et physiologiques des personnes polyhandicapées : Vers un enrichissement des possibilités de communication

International audienc