The University of Geneva (UNIGE) recently conducted a study on the exact moment of gaze direction detection which was published in the journal NeuroImage. The findings enhance the understanding of autism spectrum disorder and even offer therapeutic prospects for people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Young healthy students of the University of Geneva, Psychology faculty, aged between 18–35 years, participated in the study. 12 of them were chosen for experiment 1 and 35 participants were selected for experiment 2.
A group from UNIGE showed the 3D avatars, each with a unique head and look direction, to the research subjects. Participants were instructed to indicate the direction of the eyes in the 1st experiment and the second experiment, they had to indicate the head orientation. Both of the experiments were done with the same people under the same conditions but at different times.
The purpose of Experiment 1 was to differentiate between EEG decoding for gaze direction and face orientation. In Experiment 2, the same experimental manipulations as in Experiment 1 were used, but this time, the participants were asked to report the orientation of their heads to determine how the task instructions would alter the gaze direction and head orientation decoding. Through electroencephalogram analysis, the research team has found that these two processes may be reliably deciphered apart from one another.
The study’s first author Domilė Tautvydaitė said, ‘‘The experiment also demonstrates a certain hierarchy in the processing of these two information. The brain first perceives the more global visual cues, i.e. the orientation of the head, from 20 milliseconds onwards, before focusing on the more local information, i.e. the eyes, from 140 milliseconds onwards. This hierarchical organization then allows for the integration of eye region and head orientation information, to ensure the accurate and effective judgment of gaze direction’’.
The research additionally indicates that when participants were explicitly instructed to focus on the gaze of the shown faces, the accuracy of gaze direction decoding increased noticeably. This indicates that the work context affects how the gaze is perceived and understood. Nicolas Burra, the life of the researcher added, ‘‘In everyday life, these results show that when people are actively engaged in a ‘social mode’, they are better and faster at recognizing the intentions of other people,’’.
The study’s findings and methodology contribute significantly to the early detection of autism spectrum disorders in youngsters. In Alzheimer’s disease, one of the most noticeable signs as the disease advances is the inability to recognize faces, including those of family members.
