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Article History

Received: 13 June 2025

Accepted: 14 October 2025

First Online: 29 October 2025

Declarations

:

: The study received approval from the Senshu University Human Research Ethics Committee (approval number: 23-S001-1) and the Ethics Committee for Psychological Research of the University of Padova (approval number: 4654).

: Behavioural data and supplemental data are available at the following: .

: When people see an arrow pointing left on the right side of a screen, they usually respond more slowly than when the arrow appears on the left, because the direction of the arrow and its position conflict. Interestingly, when the same task is performed with eye gaze instead of arrows, the opposite happens: people respond more slowly when the gaze direction and the face’s position match. This latter phenomenon is known as the reversed congruency effect . In our study, Japanese and Italian participants judged gaze direction from both Asian and European faces. We found that the reversed congruency effect appeared consistently, regardless of face or participant ethnicity. This suggests that, rather than being shaped by social group membership, the effect might be better explained by more general perceptual mechanisms. Our findings indicate that the way humans process others’ gaze is a robust and universal feature of visual perception.

: The authors declare no competing interests.