Guidance of eye movements by emotion, audition and action in the absence of visual awareness

We usually move our eyes towards parts of the visual scene we consciously perceive. However, some visual stimuli also attract eye movements in the absence of visual awareness.

I will present evidence demonstrating that unseen images guide the eyes when these images are emotionally charged, paired with a congruent sound or paired with a congruent action.

We rendered images invisible using continuous flash suppression and verified full suppression from awareness with objective and subjective measures. Eye tracking results revealed that the eyes are repelled by angry faces and attracted by fearful faces (Vetter et al., 2019, eLife). Eyes are also attracted by neutral faces when paired with a congruent voice (Hu et al., in prep) and by threat-related car images when paired with a congruent engine sound (Hu et al., 2024, Front Hum Neurosci). These effects are not solely restricted to emotional or audio-visual stimuli but also extend to faces of a different race (Hu et al., under review in Psych Sci) and action-related body part images when paired with an action (Vetter et al., in revision for Cognition). Thus, when visual stimulus representations are rendered sufficiently salient, either by emotional charge, audio-visual or action-visual congruence, they have the power to guide eye movements even in the absence of visual awareness.