Animals, including dogs, dolphins, monkeys and man, follow gaze. What mediates this bias towards the eyes? One hypothesis is that primates possess a distinct neural module that is uniquely tuned for the eyes of others. An alternative explanation is that configural face processing drives fixations to the middle of peoples' faces, which is where the eyes happen to be located. We distinguish between these two accounts. Observers were presented with images of people, non-human creatures...

Many animals, such as migrating shoals of fish, navigate in groups. Knowing the mechanisms involved in animal navigation is important when it comes to explaining navigation accuracy, dispersal patterns, population and evolutionary dynamics and consequently the design of conservation strategies. When navigating towards a common target, animals could interact socially by sharing available information directly or indirectly, or each individual could navigate by itself and aggregations may not disperse because all animals are moving towards...