Holistic Face Processing: the Eye Tracking Data

Abstract

In modern literature, the question of holistic and analytic processing of facial perception and facial expressions is actively debated. Various experimental paradigms have been developed for their study, one of which was based on the face inversion effect. In a number of works to study the role of eye movements in holistic and analytic processing, the procedure of presenting upright and inverted faces was followed by recording eye movements. The results were contradictory: some works revealed significant changes in the characteristics of eye movements in the inversion effect, but the others have not found the changes. The aim of our work was to study individual eye movement strategies in the task of assessing the attractiveness of upright and inverted faces. The participants were 57 students. The results showed that a decrease in the role of holistic processing in the face inversion effect led to a significant change in fixation durations and saccade amplitudes, as well as to a change in the distribution of the dwell time on four areas of interest (eyes, nose, nose bridge and mouth). Two groups of participants with individual types of eye movement strategies (static and dynamic) were identified. Comparing eye movement strategies for upright and inverted faces showed that the dwell time distribution on areas of interest varied significantly depending on the group. These data showed the importance of incorporating the individual eye movement strategies when studying holistic and analytic face processing.