Individual differences in gaze-cuing effect are associated with facial emotion recognition and social conformity

Abstract

Spontaneous gaze following and the concomitant joint attention enable us to share representations of the world with others, which forms a foundation of a broad range of social cognitive processes. Although this form of social orienting has long been suggested as a critical starting point for the development of social and communicative behavior, there is limited evidence directly linking it to higher-level social cognitive processes among healthy adults. Here, using a gaze-cuing paradigm, we examined whether individual differences in gaze following tendency predict higher-order social cognition and behavior among healthy adults. We found that individuals who showed greater gaze-cuing effect performed better in recognizing others’ emotion and had greater tendency to conform with group opinion. These findings provide empirical evidence supporting the fundamental role of low-level socio-attentional processes in human sociality.