Skip to main content
Log in

Emotional expression affects the accuracy of gaze perception

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Motivation and Emotion Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Emotional facial expressions are powerful social cues. Here we investigated how emotional expression affects the interpretation of eye gaze direction. Fifty-two observers judged where faces were looking by moving a slider on a measuring bar to the respective position. The faces displayed either an angry, happy, fearful or a neutral expression and were looking either straight at the observer, or were rotated 2°, 4°, 6° or 8° to the left and right. We found that happy faces were interpreted as directed closer to the observer, while fearful and angry faces were interpreted as directed further away. Judgments were most accurate for neutral faces, followed by happy, angry and fearful faces. These findings are discussed on the background of the “self-referential positivity bias”, suggesting that happy faces are preferably interpreted as directed towards the self while negative emotions are interpreted as directed further away.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. The 0° position was established in an interactive pre-test, where 12 participants were asked to adjust each 3d face so that it was making eye contact. Separately for each face we then averaged the adjusted angles to receive the 0° angle. From these resulting in 0° angles the remaining 8 gaze angles were calculated.

  2. The Huynh–Feldt epsilon correction for heterogeneity of covariances was used when sphericity could not be assumed.

References

  • Adams, R. B., Jr., & Franklin, R. G., Jr. (2009). Influence of emotional expression on the processing of gaze direction. Motivation and Emotion, 33, 106–112.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Adams, R. B., Jr., & Kleck, R. E. (2003). Perceived gaze direction and the processing of facial displays of emotion. Psychological Science, 14, 644–647.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Adams, R. B., Jr., & Kleck, R. E. (2005). Effects of direct and averted gaze on the perception of facially communicated emotion. Emotion, 5, 3–11.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ando, S. (2002). Luminance-induced shift in the apparent direction of gaze. Perception, 31(6), 657–674.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Borod, J. C., Santisch Haywood, C., & Koff, E. (1997). Neuropsychological aspects of facial asymmetry during emotional expression: A review of the normal adult literature. Neuropsychology Review, 7, 41–60.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Darwin, C. (1872). The expression of the emotions in man and animals. London: John Murray.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Fox, E., Mathews, A., Calder, A. J., & Yiend, J. (2007). Anxiety and sensitivity to gaze direction in emotionally expressive faces. Emotion, 7, 478–486.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gale, C., & Monk, A. F. (2000). Where am I looking? The accuracy of video-mediated gaze awareness. Perception & Psychophysics, 62, 586–595.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hietanen, J. K., & Leppanen, J. M. (2003). Does facial expression affect attention orienting by gaze direction cues? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 29, 1228–1243.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Langton, S. R. (2000). The mutual influence of gaze and head orientation in the analysis of social attention direction. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology A, 53, 825–845.

    Google Scholar 

  • Langton, S. R., Watt, R. J., & Bruce, I. I. (2000). Do the eyes have it? Cues to the direction of social attention. Trends in Cognitive Science, 4, 50–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lee, K., Eskritt, M., Symons, L. A., & Muir, D. (1998). Children’s use of triadic eye gaze information for “mind reading”. Developmental Psychology, 34, 525–539.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lobmaier, J. S., & Perrett, D. I. (2011). The world smiles at me: Self-referential positivity bias when interpreting direction of attention. Cognition and Emotion, 25, 334–341.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lobmaier, J. S., Fischer, M. H., & Schwaninger, A. (2006). Objects capture perceived gaze direction. Experimental Psychology, 53, 117–122.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lobmaier, J. S., Tiddeman, B., & Perrett, D. I. (2008). Emotional expression modulates perceived gaze direction. Emotion, 8, 573–577.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lobmaier, J. S., Mast, F. W., & Hecht, H. (2010). For the mind’s eye the world is two-dimensional. Psychonomics Bulletin and Review, 17, 36–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Perrett, D. I., Hietanen, J. K., Oram, M. W., & Benson, P. J. (1992). Organization and functions of cells responsive to faces in the temporal cortex. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London B, Biological Sciences, 335, 23–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Powell, W. R., & Schirillo, J. A. (2009). Asymmetrical facial expressions in portraits and hemispheric laterality: A literature review. Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition, 14, 545–572.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Putman, P., Hermans, E., & van Honk, J. (2006). Anxiety meets fear in perception of dynamic expressive gaze. Emotion, 6, 94–102.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Rimmele, U., & Lobmaier, J. S. (2011). Stress increases the feeling of being looked at. Psychoneuroendocrinology. doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2011.1006.1013.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sander, D., Grandjean, D., Kaiser, S., Wehrle, T., & Scherer, K. R. (2007). Interaction effects of perceived gaze direction and dynamic facial expression: Evidence for appraisal theories of emotion. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 19, 470–480.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwaninger, A., Lobmaier, J. S., & Fischer, M. H. (2005). The inversion effect on gaze perception reflects processing of component information. Experimental Brain Research, 167, 49–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Symons, L. A., Lee, K., Cedrone, C. C., & Nishimura, M. (2004). What are you looking at? Acuity for triadic eye gaze. Journal of General Psychology, 131, 451–469.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tipples, J. (2006). Fear and fearfulness potentiate automatic orienting to eye gaze. Cognition and Emotion, 20, 309–320.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Janek S. Lobmaier was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant number PZ00P1_121622/1). Matthias Hartmann and Andreas J. Volz were supported by a grant from the Pro*Doc program of the Swiss National Science Foundation awarded to FM (PDFMP1_127238).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Janek S. Lobmaier.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Lobmaier, J.S., Hartmann, M., Volz, A.J. et al. Emotional expression affects the accuracy of gaze perception. Motiv Emot 37, 194–201 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-012-9295-4

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-012-9295-4

Keywords

Navigation