When humans cannot tell where gaze is focused, they assume that people are looking at them.

Isabelle Mareschal, now at Queen Mary University of London, and her team asked volunteers to determine where the gazes of computer-generated faces were directed. When the true direction of the gaze was obscured by pixelating the eyes, all six observers believed the gaze was directed towards them — even if the eyes or faces were rotated to the left or right.

Although it is not clear whether this gaze bias is learned or innate, it could prove useful in anticipating social interactions. Conditions such as autism have been linked to abnormal gaze behaviours, the authors note.

Curr. Biol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2013.03.030 (2013)