Culture Shapes How We Look at Faces

BACKGROUND: Face processing, amongst many basic visual skills, is thought to be invariant across all humans. From as early as 1965, studies of eye movements have consistently revealed a systematic triangular sequence of fixations over the eyes and the mouth, suggesting that faces elicit a universal, biologically-determined information extraction pattern. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here we monitored the eye movements of Western Caucasian and East Asian observers while they learned, recognized, and categorized by race Western Caucasian and East Asian faces. Western Caucasian observers reproduced a scattered triangular pattern of fixations for faces of both races and across tasks. Contrary to intuition, East…

• FQ
  Fonds Québécois de la Recherche sur la Nature et les Technologies
• MR
  Medical Research Council

  Award: PTA-031-2006-00192
• EA
  Economic and Social Research Council

  Awards: ES/E020933/1, RES-060-25-0010