Title Visual search for human gaze direction by a Chimpanzee

Background: Humans detect faces with direct gazes among those with averted gazes more efficiently than they detect faces with averted gazes among those with direct gazes. We examined whether this ‘‘stare-in-the-crowd’’ effect occurs in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), whose eye morphology differs from that of humans (i.e., low-contrast eyes, dark sclera). Methodology/Principal Findings: An adult female chimpanzee was trained to search for an odd-item target (front view of a human face) among distractors that differed from the target only with respect to the direction of the eye gaze. During visualsearch testing, she performed more efficiently when the target was a direct-gaze face than when it was an averted-gaze face. This direct-gaze superiority was maintained when the faces were inverted and when parts of the face were scrambled. Subsequent tests revealed that gaze perception in the chimpanzee was controlled by the contrast between iris and sclera, as in humans, but that the chimpanzee attended only to the position of the iris in the eye, irrespective of head direction. Conclusion/Significance: These results suggest that the chimpanzee can discriminate among human gaze directions and are more sensitive to direct gazes. However, limitations in the perception of human gaze by the chimpanzee are suggested by her inability to completely transfer her performance to faces showing a three-quarter view. Citation: Tomonaga M, Imura T (2010) Visual Search for Human Gaze Direction by a Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes). PLoS ONE 5(2): e9131. doi:10.1371/ journal.pone.0009131 Editor: Nathan Jon Emery, Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom Received September 15, 2009; Accepted January 19, 2010; Published February 9, 2010 Copyright: 2010 Tomonaga, Imura. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) (12002009, 13610086, 16002001, 16300084, 19300091, 20002001); and by MEXT Grants-in-Aid for the 21st Century COE Programs (A14 and D10) and global COE Programs (A06 and D07). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. * E-mail: [email protected]