Modulation of spatial congruency effects in gaze and arrows:

The role of task demands

Abstract

Recent research has highlighted opposing congruency effects of eye gaze and arrows in spatial Stroop tasks. Specifically, when participants are prompted to determine the direction of laterally presented arrows or gaze cues, arrows elicit a standard spatial congruency effect, whereas gaze results in a reversed spatial congruency effect. This study investigated whether task demands modulate these differential spatial congruency effects. Participants (N = 44) engaged in position and direction identification tasks. The results indicate that opposing spatial congruency effects persisted in the direction identification task. However, regular spatial congruency effects were observed in the position identification task, regardless of the stimulus type. These results suggest that the unique nature of the social cue (gaze), as opposed to the nonsocial cue (arrow), is prominent when determining a target’s direction.