Humans view other individuals and make an instantaneous judgement who they are and then they frequently look at the others' faces. The other primates such as chimpanzees and monkeys react the same, however, little is known about the other vertebrates' face-viewing patterns.

The research group of Professor Masanori Kohda of Graduate School of Science, Osaka City University and Research Fellow Takashi Hotta of Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University, demonstrated for the first time in the world that highly social fish look at the others' faces first and then frequently view them just like humans and chimpanzees.

This research shows that 'face' is a special stimulus in vertebrates in common and proves additional similarity amongst fish, human beings and primates on face-viewing pattern.

This research content was published in the online version of a British scientific journal "Scientific Reports" on June 10, 2019.

Please see the Press Release for the details (in Japanese only).

Journal: Scientific Reports
Article title: Fish focus primarily on the faces of other fish
Authors: Hotta Takashi, Kawasaka Kento, Satoh Shun, Kohda Masanori