Eye-to-eye Contact Enhances Facial Perception

Whosoever advised you to look straight into the eye of the interviewee when applying for a job was certainly a well wisher, for according to a group of scientists a direct eye to eye contact makes up for acceptance while an averted gaze generates avoidance.

A study by researchers in an Academy of Finland funded project proved that gaze direction is significant for the processing of visual information from the human face.

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This was the first time it was shown through physiological measurements that another person's gaze direction affects brain systems that are involved in the regulation of fundamental human motivational reactions.

The results of the project shed useful light on emotional reactions related to the perception of human faces and how these reactions develop.

They found that the visual system of the brain processes another person's face more efficiently when the person's gaze is straight ahead than when the gaze is averted.

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The finding shows the key importance of gaze direction in human interaction and shows how another person's gaze direction affects even the most basic facial perception.

"Our studies also show that the eye contact between two persons and an averted gaze affect the functions of the neural mechanisms that regulate approach and avoidance behaviour. Another person's direct gaze prepares for an approach, an averted gaze for avoidance," said head of the research, Professor Jari Hietanen from the University of Tampere at the Academy's Science Breakfast.

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In the study, the scientists measured the function of the brain's frontal lobes by means of electroencephalography (EEG). The results indicated that during the observation of a direct gaze, the left frontal lobe of the test subjects was more active than the right frontal lobe.

However, the situation was opposite during the observation of an averted gaze. The left-dominated activation asymmetry is linked to an approach and the right-dominated to avoidance.

"The deviations related to eye contact in people with autism are one of the earliest and most typical problems, and our studies make it possible to find out why people with autistic behaviour avoid eye contact," Hietanen said.

As atypical emotional reactions to various social stimuli, for instance other people's facial expressions, most likely play a key role in different types of mental disorders, the knowledge generated by the research project also provides an opportunity to develop efficient methods for the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders.

Source-ANI
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