Visual processing plays a pivotal role in the human perception of external information. This study seeks to investigate individuals' perceptual responses by comparing the allocation of visual attention when exposed to both human and animal faces. Employing a within-subject design, 21 participants were recruited randomly to partake in the experiment. They were presented with a series of six visual stimuli, alternating between three human faces and three animal faces, each displayed for a duration of nine seconds. The participants' gaze patterns were recorded using an eye-tracker, facilitating the generation of quantitative data. To conduct subsequent statistical analyses, parameters such as total fixation duration, fixation count, time to first fixation, and first fixation duration were employed. The findings reveal several significant trends. Firstly, when observing both human and animal faces, there is a notable increase in both total fixation duration and fixation count within the eye area compared to other facial elements. Additionally, when examining animal faces, there is a significantly greater total fixation duration and fixation count on the area encompassing the ears, surpassing the attention devoted to the ears in human faces. Lastly, participants spent significantly less time on their first fixation and had shorter initial fixation durations when focusing on the mouths of animals compared to human mouths.

Liu Enqiao. An Eye-Tracking Investigation of Attention Allocation during the Observation of Human and Animal Facial Stimuli. International Journal of Frontiers in Sociology (2023), Vol. 5, Issue 12: 16-20. https://doi.org/10.25236/IJFS.2023.051203.

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