cognitive science
and more
The eyes have it!

In this experiment you need to respond as fast as possible to the appearance of a letter. Don't let yourself be fooled by the smiley!

Play the experiment!

Read more (play the experiment first!)

Description

This is experiment is based on a series of studies by Alan Kingstone and colleagues, in which they showed that people automatically follow other people's gaze. Therefore if, say, the smiley face looks to the left you will detect the target letter faster when it is presented on the left side, relative to when it is presented on the right side. This phenomenon, which has been dubbed 'gaze-cuing', appears to be an automatic process because it occurs (in some circumstances) even if you know that the smiley face usually tries to fool you by looking in the wrong direction.

References

Friesen, C. K., & Kingstone, A. (1998). The eyes have it! Reflexive orienting is triggered by nonpredictive gaze. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 5, 490–495.