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Background There are many conflicting findings on the gaze cueing effect (GCE) of emotional facial expressions. This study aimed to investigate whether an averted gaze, accompanied by a fearful expression of different durations, could enhance attentional orientation, as measured by a participant’s eye movements. Methods Twelve participants (3 females) completed the gaze cue task, reacting to a target location after observing changes in the gaze and expression of a face illustrated on a computer screen. Meanwhile, participants’ eye movements were monitored by electrooculography. The GCE was calculated by reaction time as an indicator of attention shift. Results The analysis of the overall data did not find a significant effect of fearful facial expressions on the GCE. However, analysis of trial data that excluded a participant’s eye movement data showed that brief (0, 100 ms) presentation of the fearful facial expression enhanced the GCE compared to that during a neutral facial expression, although when the presentation time of the fearful expression was increased to 200 or 400 ms, the GCE of the fearful expression was at the same level as when model showed a neutral expression. Conclusions The results suggest that the attention-enhancing effect of gaze cues induced by rapidly presented fearful expressions occurs only when the effect of eye movement trials is excluded. This effect may be mediated by reflexively neural circuits in the amygdala that process threatening stimuli. However, as the expression duration increased, the fearful expression’s attention-enhancing effect decreased. We suggest that future studies on the emotion modulation of GCE should consider the negative effects of participants’ saccades and blinks on the experimental results.

Background Observing the direction of gaze of another person leads to shifting of attention in the same direction (gaze-cueing effect – GCE), a social-cognitive ability known as joint or social attention. Racial attitudes can influence the magnitude of GCE since it has been shown that White people showing a strong race ingroup preference follow the gaze only of White, and not Black, faces. Individuals with high autistic traits have difficulties in social-cognitive abilities that can disrupt the learning of socially shared racial attitudes. Our aim was to investigate in White Italian adults whether individuals with higher autistic traits (measured by the Autism Spectrum Quotient) show reduced implicit racial bias (measured by the Implicit Association Test) and if this bias would lead to differences in the gaze cueing effect (GCE) triggered by gaze direction of faces of different races (measured by the Gaze Cueing Task). Methods In an online study, participants ( N  = 165; 132 females; Mean age = 22.9; SD = 4.76) filled in the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) questionnaire, then performed a Gaze Cueing Task, followed and by an Implicit Association Test. Results Linear regression and linear mixed model analyses showed in the IAT task the presence of the same implicit ingroup bias for all participants, which was not predicted by the AQ score, while in the Gaze Cueing Task the GCE differed depending on the AQ score of the participants. Specifically, participants with low-medium, medium, and medium–high autistic traits (AQ = -1SD; AQ = mean; AQ =  + 1SD respectively) presented the GCE for both ingroup and outgroup cueing faces, whereas participants with high autistic traits (AQ =  + 2SD) only for ingroup faces. Conclusions In White Italian adults the presence of an implicit ingroup bias seems to influence the GCE, but it is not always true that the individuals showing an implicit ingroup bias do not orient their attention in the direction of gaze of the outgroup individuals. Instead, the GCE seems to be modulated by the level of autistic traits. That is, individuals with higher autistic traits seem to prioritize joint attention with only their ingroup members.

Using behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) measures, the present study examined whether eye gaze triggers a unique form of attentional orienting toward threat-relevant targets. A threatening or neutral target was presented after a non-predictive gaze or an arrow cue. In Experiment 1, reaction times indicated that eye gaze and arrow cues triggered different attention orienting towards threatening targets, which was confirmed by target-elicited P3b latency in Experiment 2. Specifically, for targets preceded by arrow and gaze cues, P3b peak latency was shorter for neutral targets than threatening targets. However, the latency differences were significantly smaller for gaze cues than for arrow cues. Moreover, target-elicited N2 amplitude indicated a significantly stronger cue validity effect of eye gaze than that of arrows. These findings suggest that eye gaze uniquely triggers spatial attention orienting to socially threatening information.

An effective interaction with the environment requires adaptation of one’s own behaviour to environmental demands. We do so by using cues from our environment and relating these cues to our body to predict the outcomes of events. The recent literature on embodied cognition suggests that task-relevant stimuli, presented near the hands, receive more attentional capacity and are processed differently than stimuli, presented spatially more distant to our body. It has also been proposed that near-hand processing is beneficial to conflict resolution. In the current study, we tested the assumption of an attentional bias towards the near hand space in the context of our previous work by combining a cueing paradigm (allocation of visual attention) with a conflict processing paradigm (Simon task) in the near vs far hand space. In addition, the relevance of processing was manipulated by using affective (angry vs neutral smileys) gaze cues ( i.e ., varying the valence of the cues). Our results indicate that (a) the interaction of valence × cue congruency × hand proximity was significant, indicating that the cueing effect was larger for negative valence in the proximal condition. (b) The interaction of valence × Simon compatibility × stimulus-hand proximity interaction was significant, indicating that for negative valence processing, the Simon effect was smaller in the proximal than in the distal stimulus-hand condition. This effect was at least numerically but not significantly reversed in the neutral valence condition. (c) Overall, cue congruency, indicating the correct vs incorrect attention allocation to the target stimulus onset, did not reveal any effect on Simon compatibility × stimulus-hand proximity. Our results suggest that valence, the allocation of attention, and conflict, seem to be decisive factors determining the direction and strength of hand proximity effects.