Abstract
We report the personal eye gaze patterns of people engaged in face-to-face getting acquainted conversation. Considerable differences between individuals are underscored by a stability of eye gaze patterns within individuals. Results suggest the existence of an eye-mouth gaze continuum. This continuum includes some people showing a strong preference for eye gaze, some with a strong preference for mouth gaze, and others distributing their gaze between the eyes and mouth to varying extents. Additionally, we found evidence of within-participant consistency not just for location preference but also for the duration of fixations upon the eye and mouth regions. We also estimate that during a 4-minute getting acquainted conversation mutual face gaze constitutes about 60% of conversation that occurs via typically brief instances of 2.2 seconds. Mutual eye contact ranged from 0–45% of conversation, via very brief instances. This was despite participants subjectively perceiving eye contact occurring for about 70% of conversation. We argue that the subjective perception of eye contact is a product of mutual face gaze instead of actual mutual eye contact. We also outline the fast activity of gaze movements upon various locations both on and off face during a typical face-to-face conversation.
Highlights
Homo sapiens is the only species of mammal to have evolved eyes with a white sclera[1,2]
The present study extends upon prior face-to-face dual eye tracking research by utilizing eye tracking glasses (Tobii Pro Glasses 2) and behavioural coding software (Mangold INTERACT)
We use this technology to record and present eye gaze patterns during natural conversation at a higher level of detail compared to previous dual tracking research, as we distinguish between different areas both on-face and off-face similar to prior studies using a static paradigm[14,15,16,17,18,19]
Summary
Homo sapiens is the only species of mammal to have evolved eyes with a white sclera (i.e., the large white part of the eye that surrounds the iris and pupil)[1,2]. Richardson, and Kingstone[10] have pointed out that in natural contexts gaze behaviour might be different to that observed in studies using static stimuli They explain that there is a dual function of gaze, as the eyes focus visual attention to gather information for the individual while potentially communicating information to others. The present study extends upon prior face-to-face dual eye tracking research by utilizing eye tracking glasses (Tobii Pro Glasses 2) and behavioural coding software (Mangold INTERACT) We use this technology to record and present eye gaze patterns during natural conversation at a higher level of detail compared to previous dual tracking research, as we distinguish between different areas both on-face (i.e., forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, and other-face) and off-face (i.e., up, down, off-left, and off-right) similar to prior studies using a static paradigm[14,15,16,17,18,19]. Our aims are to: (1) Investigate consistency of gaze patterns within individuals, and explore variation of gaze patterns between individuals (2) Report the prevalence of mutual face gaze and mutual eye contact, and to contrast the perception of mutual eye contact with actual levels of mutual eye contact
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