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Updated: Oct 9, 2026

A Methodology for Capturing Joint Visual Attention Using Mobile Eye-Trackers
Published on: January 18, 2020
Reflexive joint attention depends on lateralized cortical connections
A Kingstone1, C K Friesen, M S Gazzaniga
12136 West Mall, Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z4, Canada. alan.kingstone@ubc.ca
Abstract:
Joint attention, the tendency to spontaneously direct attention to where someone else is looking, has been thought to occur because eye direction provides a reliable cue to the presence of important events in the environment. We have discovered, however, that adults will shift their attention to where a schematic face is looking--even when gaze direction does not predict any events in the environment. Research with 2 split-brain patients revealed that this reflexive joint attention is lateralized to a single hemisphere. Moreover, although this phenomenon could be inhibited by inversion of a face, eyes alone produced reflexive shifts of attention. Consistent with recent functional neuroimaging studies, these results suggest that lateralized cortical connections between (a) temporal lobe subsystems specialized for processing upright faces and gaze and (b) the parietal area specialized for orienting spatial attention underlie human reflexive shifts of attention in response to gaze direction.
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