Figure 1.

An example of the sequence of events present in a trial requesting one update from Experiment 1 (A) and Experiment 2 (B). (A) After the initial stimulus adaptation phase, the participants were instructed to focus on and memorize the direction of the gaze of the face, disregarding the facial expression. After reading the instruction, they had to press the spacebar to see each face of the trial sequence. The self-paced experimental part of the trial started when the first face (Face 1, displaying here an averted gaze) appeared. Since the participants’ task was to recall at the end of the trial either the direction of the gaze or the facial expression of the last/next-to-last of the seen faces, they had to memorize the direction of the gaze of Face 1 and to keep it in mind. Then, when the participants pressed the spacebar, the second face (Face 2) was presented. Here again, the face showed an averted gaze. At that point, participants had in mind the gaze direction of the first two faces (averted–averted). Next, when the third face appeared displaying direct gaze, an updating phase took place. In it the participants had to substitute the direction of the gaze of the first memorized face with the most recent memorized one. Namely, they had to substitute the direction of gaze of Face 1 with the direction of gaze of Face 3, thus updating their representation. They now had in mind the new association of gaze direction: averted-direct. Finally, at the end of the trial, at the recall test phase, in this case they had to recall the most recent memorized gaze by pressing the key corresponding to direct gaze on the keyboard. (B) In Experiment 2 the sequence of events was the same as in Experiment 1 but the instruction request here was to focus on and memorize either eye color (shown here) or hair color. The stimuli here are reproduced in grayscale and are not drawn to scale.