Enhanced awareness of faces with slight downwards gazes in the breaking continuous flash suppression paradigm

Previous studies have suggested that faces with direct gazes are perceived more quickly than are those with averted gazes under the breaking continuous flash suppression (b-CFS) paradigm. Although averted gazes are typically examined in the horizontal orientation (leftwards and rightwards), their effects in the vertical orientation (upwards and downwards) remain underexplored. To investigate how gaze direction influences face awareness and perception in both horizontal and vertical orientations under the b-CFS paradigm, 68 participants observed faces with downwards, upwards, leftwards, rightwards, or direct gazes. These faces were presented to one eye, while a dynamic Mondrian pattern was shown to the other through a binocular separator. The participants first detected the face and then identified its gaze direction. The results indicated that the detection time for faces with downwards gazes was shorter than was the detection time for faces with the other four gaze types. However, the accuracy of gaze discrimination for downwards gazes was lower than was that for the other four gaze types. These findings suggest that downwards gazes are perceived more easily but are discriminated less easily than other gaze directions are during unconscious face processing.