Dataset Information

How Our Gaze Reacts to Another Person's Tears? Experimental Insights Into Eye Tracking Technology.

ABSTRACT: Crying is an ubiquitous human behavior through which an emotion is expressed on the face together with visible tears and constitutes a slippery riddle for researchers. To provide an answer to the question "How our gaze reacts to another person's tears?," we made use of eye tracking technology to study a series of visual stimuli. By presenting an illustrative example through an experimental setting specifically designed to study the "tearing effect," the present work aims to offer methodological insight on how to use eye-tracking technology to study non-verbal cues. A sample of 30 healthy young women with normal visual acuity performed a within-subjects task in which they evaluated images of real faces with and without tears while their eye movements were tracked. Tears were found to be a magnet for visual attention in the task of facial attribution, facilitating a greater perception of emotional intensity. Moreover, the inspection pattern changed qualitatively and quantitatively, with our participants becoming fully focused on the tears when they were visible. The mere presence of a single tear running down a cheek was associated with an increased emotional inference and greater perception of sincerity. Using normalized and validated tools (Reading the Eyes in the Mind Test and the SALAMANCA screening test for personality disorders), we measured the influence of certain characteristics of the participants on their performance of the experimental task. On the one hand, a higher level of cognitive empathy helped to classify tearful faces with higher emotional intensity and tearless faces with less emotional intensity. On the other hand, we observed that less sincerity was attributed to the tearful faces as the SALAMANCA test scores rose in clusters A (strange and extravagant) and B (immature and emotionally unstable) of our sample. The present findings highlight the advantages of using eye tracking technology to study non-verbal cues and draw attention to methodological issues that should be taken into account. Further exploration of the relationship between empathy and tear perception could be a fruitful avenue of future research using eye tracking.

SUBMITTER: Pico A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7492655 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

How Our Gaze Reacts to Another Person's Tears? Experimental Insights Into Eye Tracking Technology.

Picó Alfonso A Espert Raul R Gadea Marien M

Frontiers in psychology 20200902

Crying is an ubiquitous human behavior through which an emotion is expressed on the face together with visible tears and constitutes a slippery riddle for researchers. To provide an answer to the question "How our gaze reacts to another person's tears?," we made use of eye tracking technology to study a series of visual stimuli. By presenting an illustrative example through an experimental setting specifically designed to study the "tearing effect," the present work aims to offer methodological ...[more]

PMID: 32982872

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Project description:Importance:Objectively measuring how Mohs defect reconstruction changes casual observer attention has important implications for patients and facial plastic surgeons. Objective:To use eye-tracking technology to objectively measure the ability of Mohs facial defect reconstruction to normalize facial attention. Design, Setting, and Participants:This observational outcomes study was conducted at an academic tertiary referral center from January to June 2016. An eye-tracking system was used to record how 82 casual observers directed attention to photographs of 32 patients with Mohs facial defects of varying sizes and locations before and after reconstruction as well as 16 control faces with no facial defects. Statistical analysis was performed from November 2018 to January 2019. Main Outcomes and Measures:First, the attentional distraction caused by facial defects was quantified in milliseconds of gaze time using eye tracking. Second, the eye-tracking data were analyzed using mixed-effects linear regression to assess the association of facial defect reconstruction with normalized facial attention. Results:The 82 casual observers (63 women and 19 men; mean [SD] age, 34 [12] years) viewed control faces in a similar and consistent fashion, with most attention (65%; 95% CI, 62%-69%) directed at the central triangle, which includes the eyes, nose, and mouth. The eyes were the most visually important feature, capturing a mean of 60% (95% CI, 57%-64%) of fixation time within the central triangle and 39% (95% CI, 36%-43%) of total observer attention. The presence of Mohs defects was associated with statistically significant alterations in this pattern of normal facial attention. The larger the defect and the more centrally a defect was located, the more attentional distraction was observed, as measured by increased attention on the defect and decreased attention on the eyes, ranging from 729 (95% CI, 526-931) milliseconds for small peripheral defects to 3693 (95% CI, 3490-3896) milliseconds for large central defects. Reconstructive surgery was associated with improved gaze deviations for all faces and with normalized attention directed to the eyes for all faces except for those with large central defects. Conclusions and Relevance:Mohs defects are associated with altered facial perception, diverting attention from valuable features such as the eyes. Reconstructive surgery was associated with normalized attentional distraction for many patients with cutaneous Mohs defects. These data are important to patients who want to know how reconstructive surgery could change the way people look at their face. The data also point to the possibility of outcomes prediction based on facial defect size and location before reconstruction. Eye tracking is a valuable research tool for outcomes assessment that lays the foundation for understanding how reconstructive surgery may change perception and normalize facial deformity.

Dataset Information

How Our Gaze Reacts to Another Person's Tears? Experimental Insights Into Eye Tracking Technology.

Publications

How Our Gaze Reacts to Another Person's Tears? Experimental Insights Into Eye Tracking Technology.

Similar Datasets

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