THE EYES HAVE IT - REFLEXIVE ORIENTING IS TRIGGERED BY NONPREDICTIVE GAZE

Normal subjects were presented with a simple line drawing of a face lo oking left, right, or straight ahead. A target letter F or T then appe ared to the left or the right of the face. All subjects participated i n target detection, localization, and identification response conditio ns. Although subjects were told that the Line drawing's gaze direction (the cue) did not predict where the target would occur, response time in all three conditions was reliably faster when gaze was toward vers us away from the target. This study provides evidence for covert, refl exive orienting to peripheral locations in response to uninformative g aze shifts presented at fixation. The implications for theories of soc ial attention and visual orienting are discussed, and the brain mechan isms that may underlie this phenomenon are considered.