Individual differences in face salience and rapid face saccades

Humans saccade to faces in their periphery faster than to other types of objects. Previous research has highlighted the potential importance of the upper face region in this, but it is still unclear whether this is driven by the eye region. Similarly, it is still unclear whether such rapid saccades are exclusive to faces or generalize to other semantically salient stimuli. Furthermore, it is unknown whether individuals differ in their face-specific saccadic reaction times and if so, whether such differences could be linked to differences in face fixations during free-viewing. To explore these open questions, we invited 77 participants to perform a saccadic choice task (SCT) in which we contrasted faces as well as other salient objects, particularly isolated face features and text, with cars. Additionally, participants freely viewed 700 images of complex natural scenes in a separate session which allowed us to determine the individual proportion of first fixations falling on faces. For the SCT, we found advantages for all categories of interest over cars. However, this effect was most pronounced for images of full faces. Full faces also elicited faster saccades compared to eyes, showing that isolated eye regions are not sufficient to elicit face-like responses. Additionally, we found consistent individual differences in saccadic reaction times towards faces that weakly correlated with face salience during free-viewing. Our results suggest a link between semantic salience and rapid detection but underscore the unique status of faces. Further research is needed to resolve the mechanisms underlying rapid face saccades.