Data from: Monsters are people too

Animals, including dogs, dolphins, monkeys and man, follow gaze. What mediates this bias towards the eyes? One hypothesis is that primates possess a distinct neural module that is uniquely tuned for the eyes of others. An alternative explanation is that configural face processing drives fixations to the middle of peoples' faces, which is where the eyes happen to be located. We distinguish between these two accounts. Observers were presented with images of people, non-human creatures with eyes in the middle of their faces (`humanoids’) or creatures with eyes positioned elsewhere (`monsters’). There was a profound and significant bias towards looking early and often at the eyes of humans and humanoids and also, critically, at the eyes of monsters. These findings demonstrate that the eyes, and not the middle of the head, are being targeted by the oculomotor system.

包括犬类、海豚、猴子与人类在内的多种动物，均会追随其他个体的注视方向。那么，究竟是什么介导了这种对眼部的注视偏好？一种假说认为，灵长类动物拥有独特的神经模块，可特异性响应其他个体的眼部区域。另一种解释则主张，构型面部加工（configural face processing）会将注视点引导至人类面部的中心区域，而眼部恰好坐落于该位置。本研究旨在区分这两种假说。实验向被试呈现三类图像：人类图像、眼部位于面部中央的非人类生物（类人生物（humanoids））图像，以及眼部位置偏离面部中央的生物（怪物（monsters））图像。结果显示，被试表现出显著且强烈的早期及高频注视偏好：不仅会优先注视人类与类人生物的眼部，尤为关键的是，同样会注视怪物的眼部。上述研究结果表明，动眼神经系统（oculomotor system）所靶向的目标为眼部区域，而非头部中央位置。