Are eyes special? It depends on how you look at it

Recent behavioral data have shown that central nonpredictive gaze direction triggers reflexive shifts of attention toward the gazed-at location (e.g., Friesen & Kingstone, 1998). Friesen and Kingstone suggested that this reflexive orienting effect is unique to biologically relevant stimuli. Three experiments were conducted to test this proposal by comparing the attentional orienting produced by nonpredictive gaze cues (biologically relevant) with the attentional orienting produced by nonpredictive arrow cues (biologicallyirrelevant).Both types of cues produced reflexiveorienting in adults (Experiment 1)and preschoolers (Experiment 2), suggesting that gaze cues are not special