An Investigation Into the Cortical Electrophysiology of Remote Staring Detection

Abstract

A series of three experiments examining the potential electrocortical processing of remote staring detection are presented, followed by a fourth experiment to examine a potential artifact. The first experiment provides an initial exploration of this effect, finding primarily that “remote staring detection” has no evident timelocked processing associated with it on its own, but rather acts upon other processes occurring at the same time. The second experiment provides evidence that this effect is not related specifically to face processing, but can impact on other forms of processing as well. The third experiment uncovers evidence of a potential artifact that could explain the “remote staring effect”, which is verified in the final experiment. The overall results are discussed in light of an interesting and subtle psychophysics effect that could potentially have an impact upon a wide variety of experiments that employ event-related measures of electrocortical processing.