Pointing over gaze: how saliency, proximity, and context shape spatial attention to embodied cues

Recent work suggests that the pointing hand on an outstretched arm is possibly a more powerful cue than the gaze-cue, suggesting these embodied social cues are not equal. The aim of this study is to investigate differences between gaze- and pointing-cue, looking specifically at saliency, spatial proximity, and trial context. A cartoon figure was used to present four types of cues: (1) a gaze-cue, (2) a peripheral pointing cue on an outstretched arm, (3) a central pointing cue presented over the torso of the body, and (4) a flower cue matched for low-level features to the peripheral pointing cue. Validity was non-predictive. To test the impact of trial context on the impact of the cues, different cue types were presented randomly within blocks (Experiment 1) or tested in separate blocks (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, gaze and gesture cues were intermixed within blocks, but the number of gaze-cue trials was balanced with the pointing cues, ensuring that the gaze-cue occurred equally often as the gesture cues. The results showed that the pointing cue was much more effective in directing attention than the gaze-cue, especially when cues could not be predicted (Experiment 1 and 3). Blocked conditions (Experiment 2) yielded more effective cue-effects compared to mixed conditions (Experiment 1) and even yielded reliable cue effects for stimuli without intuitive directional meaning (i.e., flower cue). Across all three experiments, the results showed that the impact of the pointing cue could not be explained by low-level salience or spatial proximity to the target. Trial context affected the effectiveness of the cues, suggesting that spatial cueing is shaped by expectations; however, the advantage of the pointing cue over the gaze cue emerged independently of trial context. Together, these results challenge the idea that embodied cues influence attention uniformly, revealing systematic variation in effectiveness, with the pointing cue especially robust.