Recent studies demonstrate that adaptation is also evident in response to more complex stimuli, such as body position (Lawson, Clifford, & Calder,
2009), facial emotions (Hsu & Young,
2004), distortion of facial features (Webster & MacLin,
1999), and gender (Barrett & O'Toole,
2009; Webster, Kaping, Mizokami, & Duhamel,
2004). Recently, adaptation has also been applied to gaze perception, revealing that repeated exposure to gaze in a specific direction affects the subsequent ability to identify gaze in that direction (Calder et al.,
2007; Cheleski, Mareschal, Calder, & Clifford,
2013; Jenkins, Beaver, & Calder,
2006; Seyama & Nagayama,
2006). In these studies, following prolonged exposure to images of faces with eyes averted to the right or left, participants demonstrated an increased tendency to judge gaze that is averted in the direction of adaptation as being direct. Perception of gaze deviations in the nonadapted direction remained largely unaffected. These effects persisted over variations in head size and head orientation between adaptation and test phases, indicating that they are not the result of retinal or early cortical habituation. Rather, they support a model of higher-level visual processes that respond specifically to a representation of gaze direction (Jenkins et al.,
2006).