Face masks do not hinder gaze-triggered social attention.

Previous studies using gaze-cueing tasks have reported mixed findings regarding how face masks affect gaze-triggered attentional processes. However, in those tasks, participants were explicitly instructed to ignore gaze and face stimuli, potentially minimizing or even eliminating the effect of the face mask on gaze-related behavior. To address this limitation, the present study examined the effect of face masks on gaze-triggered attention using a spatial Stroop task, in which participants explicitly judged the gaze direction of a lateralized face. We compared the reversed congruency effect elicited by masked and unmasked faces, which has been attributed to eye contact and joint attention. Across three experiments and a combined analysis, face masks did not affect the magnitude of the reversed congruency effect. These results reinforce the idea that gaze-triggered attention is robust against the presence of face masks, highlighting the stability of human social attention even under conditions of limited facial visibility.