Virtual reality as a proxy for real-life social attention?

Abstract

Previous studies found large amounts of overt attention allocated towards human faces when they were presented as images or videos, but a relative avoidance of gaze at conspecifics' faces in real-world situations. We measured gaze behavior in a complex virtual scenario in which a human face and an object were similarily exposed to the participants' view. Gaze at the face was avoided compared to gaze at the object, providing support for the hypothesis that virtual reality scenarios are capable of eliciting modes of information processing comparable to real-world situations.