Social inclusion, but not exclusion, delays attentional disengagement from direct gaze

The present study investigated whether another person’s direct gaze holds a perceiver’s visuospatial attention and whether social exclusion or social inclusion would enhance this effect. Participants were socially excluded, socially included, or underwent a non-social control manipulation in a virtual ball-tossing game. The manipulation was followed by an attentional disengagement task, in which we measured manual response times in...