Journal Article

Differences in eye movements for face recognition between Canadian and Chinese participants are not modulated by social orientation

Estéphan, Amanda, Blais, Caroline, Fiset, Daniel, Lingnan, He, Caldara, Roberto, Gingras, Francis

2023

Overview

Face recognition strategies do not generalize across individuals. Many studies have reported robust cultural differences between West Europeans/North Americans and East Asians in eye movement strategies during face recognition. The social orientation hypothesis posits that individualistic vs. collectivistic (IND/COL) value systems, respectively defining West European/North American and East Asian societies, would be at the root of many cultural differences in visual perception. Whether social orientation is also responsible for such cultural contrast in face recognition remains to be clarified. To this aim, we conducted two experiments with West European/North American and Chinese observers. In Experiment 1, we probed the existence of a link between IND/COL social values and eye movements during face recognition, by using an IND/COL priming paradigm. In Experiment 2, we dissected the latter relationship in greater depth, by using two IND/COL questionnaires, including subdimensions to those concepts. In both studies, cultural differences in fixation patterns were revealed between West European/North American and East Asian observers. Priming IND/COL values did not modulate eye movement visual sampling strategies, and only specific subdimensions of the IND/COL questionnaires were associated with distinct eye-movement patterns. Altogether, we show that the typical contrast between IND/COL cannot fully account for cultural differences in eye movement strategies for face recognition. Cultural differences in eye movements for faces might originate from mechanisms distinct from social orientation.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Asian people / Biology and Life Sciences / Cognitive style / Collectivism / Cultural differences / Cultural factors / Culture / Evaluation / Experiments / Eye / Eye movements / Face / Face recognition / Hypotheses / Individualism / Medicine and Health Sciences / Norms / Observers / Orientation / Orientation behavior / Pattern recognition / People and Places / Priming / Questionnaires / Research and Analysis Methods / Social interactions / Social Sciences / Social values / Statistical power / Visual observation / Visual perception