The mediating effects of facial expression on spatial interference between gaze direction and gaze location

Gaze direction is an important social cue that interacts with facial expression. Cañadas and Lupiáñez (2012) reported a reverse-congruency effect such that identification of gaze direction was faster when a face was presented to the left but with the eyes directed to the right, or vice versa. In two experiments, this effect is replicated and then extended to explore the relationship between this effect and facial expression. Results show that the reverse-congruency effect is replicable with speeded gaze-direction identification, and that the effect is mediated by facial expression. The reverse-congruency effect is similar for happy and angry faces, but was not found for fearful faces. Findings are discussed in relation to the similarity of processing of incongruent gaze direction and the processing of direct gaze.