From the emotional expression of a face and from the direction of eye gaze we make inferences about another persons focus of interest, their mental state and intentions. This information can be complex but also ambiguous and it would make good adaptive sense for an observer to integrate these different sources of information when making inferences as to whether somebody is looking at something good or bad in the environment. Surprisingly, past research shows that this is not the case. Using the spatial cueing paradigm, we investigated whether the observed direction of eye-gaze and facial expression affect spatial attention, provided the presence of a contextual goal. Results showed evidence of a top-down modulation of visual attention to social cues under these conditions. The implications of these findings for current theories are discussed.

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