Abstract
Humans substantially rely on non-verbal cues in their communication and interaction with others. The eyes represent a “simultaneous input-output device”: While we observe others and obtain information about their mental states (including feelings, thoughts, and intentions-to-act), our gaze simultaneously provides information about our own attention and inner experiences. This substantiates its pivotal role for the coordination of communication. The communicative and coordinative capacities – and their phylogenetic and ontogenetic impacts – become fully apparent in triadic interactions constituted in its simplest form by two persons and an object. Technological advances have sparked renewed interest in social gaze and provide new methodological approaches. Here we introduce the ‘Social Gaze Space’ as a new conceptual framework for the systematic study of gaze behavior during social information processing. It covers all possible categorical states, namely ‘partner-oriented,’ ‘object-oriented,’ ‘introspective,’ ‘initiating joint attention,’ and ‘responding joint attention.’ Different combinations of these states explain several interpersonal phenomena. We argue that this taxonomy distinguishes the most relevant interactional states along their distinctive features, and will showcase the implications for prominent social gaze phenomena. The taxonomy allows to identify research desiderates that have been neglected so far. We argue for a systematic investigation of these phenomena and discuss some related methodological issues.
Highlights
Specialty section: This article was submitted to Personality and Social Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
It covers all possible categorical states, namely ‘partner-oriented,’ ‘objectoriented,’ ‘introspective,’ ‘initiating joint attention,’ and ‘responding joint attention.’. Different combinations of these states explain several interpersonal phenomena. We argue that this taxonomy distinguishes the most relevant interactional states along their distinctive features, and will showcase the implications for prominent social gaze phenomena
Thereby, non-verbal communication must not be treated as a series of isolated and discrete signals but as a complex and dynamic process (Burgoon et al, 1989, p. 23)
Summary
Among the non-verbal cues, gaze behavior plays a pivotal role. The eyes are among the first and most frequently fixated regions in humans (Yarbus, 1967; Walker-Smith et al, 1977) from early infancy on (Haith et al, 1977), serve face and emotion recognition, and allow to identify gender, age, and personality (George and Conty, 2008; Itier and Batty, 2009). We propose a taxonomy of the “Social Gaze Space” (SGS) that comprises all internal states a person can possibly adopt in the most basic setup of a gaze-based triadic interaction, as constituted by two interaction partners and an object. We propose a taxonomy of the “Social Gaze Space” (SGS) that comprises all internal states a person can possibly adopt in the most basic setup of a gaze-based triadic interaction, as constituted by two interaction partners and an object1 These states are: partner-oriented (PO), object-oriented (OO), introspective (INT), responding joint attention (RJA), and initiating joint attention (IJA). Our focus lies on overt visual attention as deducible from gaze direction, whereas covert attention and other correlates of attention (e.g., pupil diameter, eye convergence, blinking rate) will be discussed only marginally
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