Agents versus avatars: effects of manipulating the social relevance of gaze-cues on attention and eye-movements

Research into gaze-cue effects has traditionally been conducted using computerised stimuli without human agency (i.e. social relevance). Recent studies have demonstrated that social appearance (i.e. anthropomorphic representation) alone is not adequate in eliciting truly social responses, social relevance is paramount. Therefore, we manipulated the perception of agency in a computerised target location task with integrated anthropomorphic gaze-cues in varying congruency. Participants believed gaze-cues were either computer-generated (agent) or dictated by a keyboard response of the experimenter (human-controlled; avatar). Behavioural (response times), physiological (heart rate, electrodermal activity) and eye-movement (number of fixations and initial fixation location) measures were recorded.
Human agency facilitated overall response times and exclusively elicited gaze-cue effects; response times significantly faster for congruently, compared to incongruently cued trials. Whilst participants were not required to look at the target for task completion, eye-movement recording revealed overt orienting in most trials, with significantly fewer fixations for human agency trials. There was no difference in the number of initial fixations towards the target or social (i.e. face, direction of gaze) locations between agency conditions. Heart rates were found to be lower in the human agency condition.
Our results support the automaticity of gaze-cue effects and the role of social relevance in eliciting social responses. Whilst it is widely established that gaze-cue effects do not necessarily engage overt orienting, results suggest that eye-movements may in fact play a role in the facilitation of response times associated with reflexive orienting; in human agency trials responses were faster and contained fewer fixations.