Social updating: The role of gaze direction in updating and memorizing emotional faces

The aim of the study was to investigate how gaze direction of same identity faces impacts on updating and memorizing processes. Faces are multidimensional stimuli, crucial for interpersonal relations. All their features must be bound and combined together to form a coherent social percept; in particular, the combinations between gaze direction and facial expression convey very relevant information concerning behavioral and social appraisal. In two experiments we manipulated the face's social and adaptive meaning by means of different association between gaze direction and facial expression: strong observer self-meaningful associations (e.g., joy-direct gaze) were compared to weak ones (e.g., joy-averted gaze). Shorter latencies were needed to update strongly associated combinations than weak ones (Exp. 1). More interestingly, the updating of strongly associated combinations was faster than simply memorizing them (Exp. 2). The findings are discussed with reference to updating and memorizing processes in social cognition.