Effects of fearful face presentation time and observer's eye movement on the gaze cue effect

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.

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.

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.

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.