Cortical processing of head- and eye-gaze cues guiding joint social attention

Previous fMRI experiments showed an involvement of the STS in the processing of eye-gaze direction in joint attention. Since head-gaze direction can also be used for the assessment of another person's attentional focus, we compared the mechanisms underlying the processing of head- and eye-gaze...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:NeuroImage (Orlando, Fla.) Fla.), 2011-01, Vol.54 (2), p.1643-1653
Main Authors: Laube, Inga, Kamphuis, Simone, Dicke, Peter W., Thier, Peter
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Attention - physiology
Autism
Cerebral Cortex - physiology
Cues
Deactivation
Eye
Female
Fixation, Ocular
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Head
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Psychophysics
Studies
Superior temporal sulcus
Visual Perception - physiology
Young Adult
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Summary:Previous fMRI experiments showed an involvement of the STS in the processing of eye-gaze direction in joint attention. Since head-gaze direction can also be used for the assessment of another person's attentional focus, we compared the mechanisms underlying the processing of head- and eye-gaze direction using a combined psychophysical and fMRI approach. Subjects actively followed the head- or eye-gaze direction of a person in a photograph towards one of seven possible targets by moving their eyes. We showed that the right posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS) as well as the right fusiform gyrus (FSG) were involved in both processing of head- as well as eye-gaze direction. Another finding was a bilateral deactivation of a distinct area in the middle STS (mSTS) as well as the left anterior STS (aSTS), that was stronger when subjects followed eye-gaze direction than when they followed head-gaze direction. We assume that this deactivation is based on an active suppression of information arising from the distracting other directional cue, i.e. head-gaze direction in the eye-gaze direction task and eye-gaze direction in the head-gaze direction task. These results further support the hypothesis that the human equivalent of the gaze sensitive area in monkeys lies in more anterior parts of the STS than previously thought. ►Perception of head or eye-gaze differentially modulate activity in aSTS and mSTS. ►pSTS and FSG are activated for the perception of eye-gaze as well as head direction. ►Incongruent head and eye-gaze direction decrease accuracy in the judgment of either
ISSN:1053-8119
1095-9572
DOI:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.08.074