When gaze conflicts with space: Implicit eye contact and the reversed congruency effect

Abstract

The human ability to perceive and interpret others’ gaze direction is crucial for social interaction and may rely on specialized attentional mechanisms. A particularly striking finding in this domain is the reversed congruency effect (RCE), in which responses are faster when gaze direction and spatial position are incongruent. Two experiments (44 participants each) tested how gaze deviation modulates this effect to test two competing accounts: the eye-contact hypothesis, which attributes the RCE to implicit misperceptions of direct gaze, and the joint-attention hypothesis, which links it to shared attention toward a common focus. Participants performed a spatial interference task in which faces displayed either partially or fully averted gaze. A robust RCE emerged for partially averted gaze, while the effect was reduced for fully averted ones, a pattern that constrains competing accounts of the RCE. Subjective ratings confirmed that subtle deviations were perceived as more direct, but congruency did not affect explicit judgments of being looked at. This dissociation suggests that the RCE may reflect implicit processes related to the social interpretation of gaze rather than explicit awareness, providing constraints on competing accounts of gaze-based attention.