Making Eye Contact Research Articles

A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Books of the Members of the MLA from Being a Burden to Their Authors, Publishers, or Audiences

“It is a melancholly object to those, who walk through this great [country] or travel in the [world], when they see the Streets, the Roads and Cabbin-doors crowded with [would-be authors] importuning every Passenger for Alms.” Thus Jonathan Swift, but now I want to make my modest proposal to you. I propose that modesty be our guide. Once I sought to make my way in the world by publishing articles and books and teaching and thereby winning tenure, and my heart goes out to all those who crowd the aisles of the book exhibits at the MLA annual meeting and the corridors of the hotels where interviews are taking place. Those corridors, where you cannot make eye contact with anyone, I will never forget. But does the current system for granting tenure make sense, based as it is in large part on the imperative that those who would win tenure publish one and often two books? I think not, and I think the members of the MLA should rise up and insist that these expectations be demolished and that other, more modest expectations be erected in their place.

Administering the Digit Span Subtest of the WISC-III to Children With Attentional, Emotional, and Learning Difficulties: Should the Examiner Make Eye Contact or Not?

This study examined the impact of eye contact versus no eye contact during the administration of the Digit Span subtest of the third edition of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III) to a clinical population of children. Forty-three children, ranging in age from 6 to 16 years, participated in the study, representing a range of attentional, emotional, and learning diagnoses. Participants were administered the Digit Span subtest once with and once without the examiner offering eye contact, in counterbalanced order. Results indicated that respondents generally avoided making eye contact with the examiner, even during the eye contact condition, suggesting that eye contact is at least not preferred during recall of Digit Span numbers. Performance was not impacted by the eye contact behavior of the examiner as respondents generally avoided eye contact. Implications for examiner eye contact behavior during administration of the Digit Span to a clinical population of children are discussed.

The effects of systematic stroking versus tickling and poking on infant behavior

Effects of contingent stroking were compared to effects of contingent tickling and poking on infant eye contact (attention) and affect during face-to-face interactions with an adult female. Twelve 2-to 4.5-mo-old infants participated in a within-subjects alternating-treatments design. Each subject received the two touch conditioning treatments in alternation within each of four consecutive sessions. In each session, three 2-min conditioning periods were implemented. Compared to tickling and poking treatment, during the systematic-stroking treatment all infants spent a greater proportion of time making eye contact with the experimenter, smiled and vocalized more and frowned and cried less.

Infant sensitivity to deviations in dynamic facial-vocal displays: the role of eye regard.

Do young infants appreciate the intentionality of adult interactors? In view of recent speculation that infants are innately sensitive to eye direction and that communicative intent is conveyed in part by attentional cues, the reactions of 3- and 5-month infants were compared to video episodes of normally responsive women who either appeared or did not appear to make eye contact. Across three experiments, lack of eye contact was achieved by either averting the eyes (E), averting the head and eyes (H&E), closing the eyes (ECL), or averting the head alone (H). Three-month-olds smiled less at H&E, H, and ECL, but not at E, relative to frontal faces, indicating sensitivity to head but not to eye orientation. By contrast, 5-month-olds smiled less at H&E, E, and ECL, but not at H, indicating sensitivity to both head and eye orientation. The implications of the data for mentalist views of infant social behavior are discussed.

Manual action in infant chimpanzees: a preliminary study.

In human infants, index finger extension is shown frequently even from 3 months old, and it is considered that such pointing develops into deictic and communicative pointing however, there are many reports that chimpanzees do not point with the index finger. In the present study the manual actions of two infant chimpanzees were observed when the experimenter was trying to make eye contact with them. The result shows that pointing was shown very rarely by these infant chimpanzees even morphologically.

Administering the Digit Span Subtest of the WISC-ILL: Should the Examiner Make Eye Contact or Not?

This study examined the impact of the examiner making eye contact versus not making eye contact during the administration of the Digit Span subtest of the Wechsler scales. Two groups of subjects were studied: A sample of 40 college students and 41 high school students. Results indicate that, regardless of the examiner's eye-contact behavior, subjects actively avoided eye contact while recalling numbers. College students performed significantly better on the Digit Span forward and backward task during both the eye-contact and no-eye-contact condition than did high school students. A significant order effect was obtained such that performance was enhanced in both groups when the no-eye-contact condition was delivered first and the eye-contact condition second. The results suggest that eye contact may be a source of distraction and is not preferred by those responding to the Digit Span subtest. Therefore, eye contact should not be emphasized in the administration.

Dominance and Deception in Children and Adults: Are Leaders the Best Misleaders?

Relationships between dominance and nonverbal deception skill were investigated in preschool children (Study 1) and in under-graduate men and women (Study 2). Subjects were assessed for dominance during peer group interactions. Later, they encoded and decoded deceptive messages. Raters assessed the credibility of each subject's encoded message using nonverbal cues alone. Ability to encode credible, deceptive messages predicted dominance in preschool children and men but not women. Decoding deception accurately from nonverbal cues was unrelated to dominance. Videotapes of subjects' performances were examined for nonverbal behaviors predictive of deception success. Very young children successfully masked their deception by smiling. Successful adult deceivers made eye contact with the listener and inhibited smiling while delivering deceptive messages. Overall, results were generally consistent with a social skills approach to dominance in which manipulative ability is believed to be integral to achieving and maintaining social power.

Fast Food, Fast Talk: Service Work and the Routinization of Everyday Life.

Attending Hamburger University, Robin Leidner observes how McDonald's trains the managers of its fast-food restaurants to standardize every aspect of service and product. Learning how to sell life insurance at a large midwestern firm, she is coached on exactly what to say, how to stand, when to make eye contact, and how to build up Positive Mental Attitude by chanting 'I feel happy! I feel terrific!' Leidner's fascinating report from the frontlines of two major American corporations uncovers the methods and consequences of regulating workers' language, looks, attitudes, ideas, and demeanor. Her study reveals the complex and often unexpected results that come with the routinization of service work. Some McDonald's workers resent the constraints of prescribed uniforms and rigid scripts, while others appreciate how routines simplify their jobs and give them psychological protection against unpleasant customers. Combined Insurance goes further than McDonald's in attempting to standardize the workers' very selves, instilling in them adroit maneuvers to overcome customer resistance. The routinization of service work has both poignant and preposterous consequences. It tends to undermine shared understandings about individuality and social obligations, sharpening the tension between the belief in personal autonomy and the domination of a powerful corporate culture. Richly anecdotal and accessibly written, Leidner's book charts new territory in the sociology of work. With service sector work becoming increasingly important in American business, her timely study is particularly welcome.

The role of eye contact in goal detection: Evidence from normal infants and children with autism or mental handicap

AbstractOne reason for looking at a person's eyes may be to diagnose their goal, because a person's eye direction reliably specifies what they are likely to act upon next. We report an experiment that investigates whether or not young normal infants use eye contact for this function. We placed them in situations in which the adult's action toward them was either ambiguous or unambiguous in its goal. Results showed that the majority of normal infants and young children with mental handicap made instant eye contact immediately following the ambiguous action but rarely after the unambiguous action. Young children with autism, in contrast, made eye contact equally (little) in both conditions. These results are discussed in relation to the function of eye contact, to our understanding of infant cognition, and to the theory of mind hypothesis of autism.

Smile for Auntie : A Comic Performance Reviewed

Smile for Auntie:A Comic Performance Reviewed Amy Schwartz (bio) The Library of Congress synopsis found on the copyright page of every children's book published in the United States often reads as a comic foil for the book's actual contents. This brief summary is usually quite matter of fact as it bluntly wraps up a plot the author in all probability hoped was subtle and complex. And sometimes there is vast irony in what is left out of the statement. In the case of Smile for Auntie by Diane Paterson (Dial, 1976), we read: "Auntie tries everything she can think of to make the baby smile." Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 90] Well, this does describe the plot. But one has only to flip back the copyright page, and glimpse the anxious portrait of Baby sucking his thumb on the title page that precedes it, to see that someone's side of the story isn't being told, that something more sinister is going on than the summary tells us. Just ask Baby. Smile for Auntie is really a one-line joke in which two viewpoints are presented. And, as with any one-liner, much depends on the delivery. Paterson's book could easily have fallen flat if not for its author's exquisitely deliberate graphic sense. Smile for Auntie is silly, small, very elegant, and deceptively simple. Click for larger view View full resolution The first person Paterson introduces us to is Auntie herself. There she is, impossible to avoid, in a straight-on headshot on the front jacket. At first glance one sees a happy, doughy-faced, babushka-covered grandmotherly presence. But when one looks again, and makes eye contact [End Page 91] with Auntie, her gaze becomes piercing, her grin rather maniacal, and we realize that Rodchenko's grandmother is in reality the Red Baron. Open the book, and one encounters Auntie's victim on the title page. Baby, a bundle of nerves, is clutching his stomach and sucking his thumb. Then, on the dedication page, a harmonious still life of children's toys is set out for inspection. A momentary respite, but a deceptive one, given the trouble that is to follow. Click for larger view View full resolution On pages four and five, the story proper begins. Auntie appears on the left-hand page, simply clad in her purple coat, mustard boots and polka-dot kerchief. She is beseeching Baby, on the facing page, to smile. There is no background, no horizon line. The square white pages operate as real space for the characters. In this opening spread, Paterson clearly defines territory, a concept which will become more and more important as the book progresses. Each character presides over precisely half of [End Page 92] each double page. The very ample Auntie occupies the whole of page four. The Uncle Fester-like, mustard-clothed, small, but defiantly un-cute Baby floats in the white space of page five. We can already sense that all this empty air surrounding Baby is not gratuitous, but rather that he needs it, all of it. The reader begins to realize what Baby already knows, that the book's gutter is the only thing holding his smotheringly possessive Auntie at bay. Auntie's pleas build over the next eight pages. "I'll sing a song to help you smile. I'll do a little dance. I'll make funny faces at you. I'll stand on my head. I'll jump up and down. Smile just a little smile for Auntie." Click for larger view View full resolution Auntie's courtship dance has begun. It is a joy to flip the pages and watch it progress. She twists and turns, jumps and rolls, expands and contracts. Each page is a happy surprise of posture and movement, flowing easily from, or mischieviously playing against, the preceding image. [End Page 93] Twice in these last four spreads, one has reencountered Baby, answering Auntie from his right hand page with his dispairing eyes, his ever-present helpless frown—and his silence. With her canny book design and rhythmic language, Paterson makes the reader pause to allow Baby...

Making a difference for maltreated children

Joey, age two and a half, spends most of his day sitting in a corner sucking his thumb. He doesn't seem to find interest in the toys or activities available to him. Sandy is three years old. Most of the time, she seems oblivious to the rules and routines of her care center. When she arrives in the morning, she throws her coat on the floor instead of hanging it in her cubby. She refuses to respond appropriately to the cleanup signal. She rarely smiles or laughs, nor does she make eye contact with her teachers or peers. She is unusually attached, however, to one caregiver and attempts to stay close to that person whenever she can. However, the social interaction between the two is limited by Sandy's reluctance to communicate despite the efforts of the caregiver. Laurie, age four and a half, has a violent temper. She solves any personal conflict by using physical aggression. She often strikes out without apparent provocation. She is delayed in her speech development and lacks curiosity about her physical world.

Evidence of New Physical, Genetic, Links in Autism

EMERGING EVIDENCE of genetic links to brain abnormalities and autistic behavior is establishing autism as an organic, rather than emotional, disorder. To be classified as autistic, a patient must have 8 of 16 characteristics listed in the<i>Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders</i>, revised third edition. Although the combination of characteristics displayed can vary widely among patients with autism, psychiatrist Allan Reiss, MD, and psychologist Lisa Freund, PhD, have found that one subgroup—males with fragile X syndrome—shows a consistent pattern of autistic symptoms and behaviors. This group has difficulty relating to peers, initiating conversations, making eye contact, and speaking normally. They also have motion disorders, such as hand-flapping, and abnormal sensory preoccupations, such as hypersensitivity to noise. Men with the fragile X syndrome, which is characterized by as yet unknown chromosome abnormalities, are usually mentally retarded and usually have neuropsychiatric disorders that often include autistic behavior. Because females usually

The Pickpocket of Torre Bermeja

THE PICKPOCKET OF TORRE BERMEJA / James Frazee I was buying merluza at the Plena Luna fish market when the pickpocket of Torre Bermeja went crazy, when I saw him walk in, this legless imp of a crook on the palms of his hands with lottery tickets clipped to the greasy lapels of his alpaca jacket. Earlier, he had been hawking these tickets without luck at a cigarette newsstand with his mangled gang, each with an eye or leg or arm missing; they had propped him on a trash bin behind them. Maybe it was their turn to stand in front and beg or maybe they just got sick and tired of him. No handouts in Spain; everyone had to work for a living. You see, this was the seventies and Franco was alive. How the pickpocket lost his legs you found out if you bowed to curiosity and made eye contact. I had already made that mistake. Without a peseta, no food, rent six months overdue, a hungry daughter, this widower found himself in a bank with a knife. Come from a family of caretakers, those nightwatchmen who cruise neighborhoods with skeleton keys to open doors for locked out residents at the clap of hands for small tips, he lost his patrol the night he let two kids in a flat they didn't own, who took off with jeweled crucifixes and a hidden life savings. As soon as he hit the pavement outside the bank, running with a pillowcase of money, the Civil Guard ordered him to stop and when he didn't, their machine guns fired cutting him nearly in half at the thighs. He winced, remembering falling back on his legs that tore away from beneath him. He said he looked like a run-over dog. The Missouri Review · 223 His daughter, forced into an orphanage run by nuns, scrubbed marble floors, peeled potatoes, was beaten by the tougher girls who swore to her Jesus wouldn't return until she was dead, then was locked up in solitary confinement for not confessing sins. Denied visits to her criminal father, despondent and mum, she stepped out in front of a bus, dying instantly. After four years of reading about it in her diary in prison he was released, and turned to cruising crowds on the Ramblas, in the darker plazas, at the Quo Vadis bar, any trafficked area where he could slip a hand into somebody's pocket. In summer he stole so much money he could afford a taxi from one hot spot to another. He bought a wheelchair in which he would run over, whenever he got the chance, the feet of nuns. But soon, as living on the edge catches up to you, he was caught with his hand in an off-duty policeman's pocket and spent six months in jail, his wheelchair taken away. The blue pigment in one eye began to chip away, his torso became stocky, his hands swelled into calcified paws, and his fingers, callus upon callus, yellowed from the filterless cigarettes he chain-smoked. By the time I heard his story he had been shouting out lottery tickets for three years. His voice was hoarse. When he came into the shady Plena Luna it was swarming with schools of shoppers and a pack of kids with squirt guns. Bluebottle flies strafed open barrels of fish heads at opposite sides of the counter, red gouges of mottled beef hung from bloodied hooks next door, and beyond, tables spread out carrots, squash, 224 ¦ The Missouri Review James Frazee onions, ropes of garlic, fat tomatoes, and liters of olive oil. The kids squirted him in his ears with the guns. He barked them away like a dog, swatted at them but they came back like the flies. No one did a thing to stop it, not even me, and the kids spun him around. Maybe it was a game. Maybe a dance for one. He fled to a fish barrel and tipped it over on one kid spilling hundreds of severed heads and guts and scales, then he ran to the other barrel, did the same and soon the floor sparkled and...

Young children's use of prosody.

ABSTRACTThis study examined the relationship between prosodic variables in children's spontaneous speech and aspects of children's social behaviour while speaking. Twelve children aged 1; 11 to 2; 1 were videotaped in free play with an adult. Two hundred spontaneous utterances were sampled, and each utterance was psychophysically rated on loudness, pitch, and pitch range. These measurements were aggregated in a single measure of prosody for each utterance, which was related to whether or not children (a) made eye contact, (b) showed other social behaviours, or (c) showed no interactive behaviour with adults when an utterance was made. Results showed that utterances made while maintaining eye contact were on average louder and higher and more variably pitched. Such a finding indicates that children use prosodic elements of speech for communicative purposes.

Behavioral Referents for Molar Ratings of Heterosocial Skill

A linear modeling technique was used to identify valid behavioral referents of molar heterosocial skill ratings in both men and women. Videotapes of the heterosocial interactions of 30 men and 30 women representing a wide range of skill were shown to untrained peers who made molar heterosocial skill ratings and supplied lists of the behavioral cues they believed to be useful in discriminating skillful and unskillful subjects. The most widely endorsed cues were then scored for their rates of occurrence in the target subjects' interactions, and multiple regression analyses were used to construct linear models of behavioral referents for the molar heterosocial skill ratings. Highly skilled men were those who kept their gaze up, asked questions, and used appropriate hand gestures. Highly skilled women were those who kept their gaze up, made eye contact, and avoided speaking too softly.

Effects of a blacklight visual field on eye-contact training of spastic cerebral palsied children.

This study investigated the effects of a blacklight visual field on eye-contact training with visually impaired, spastic cerebral palsied children. Four subjects, aged 6 and 7 yr., identified as visually impaired in reference to the Callier-Azusa Scale, were given training in making eye contact with a stimulus object under both white and a blacklight visual field. A counter-balanced design was used so that two of the subjects began training under white light and two began with a blacklight visual field. An analysis of variance for repeated measures indicated a significant main effect for the lighting condition. All subjects performed better under the blacklight condition, even overcoming the expected practice effect when white light training followed blacklight training.

Commuters' eye contact with strangers in city and suburban train stations: Evidence of short-term adaptation to interpersonal overload in the city

In the present study experimenters attempted to make eye contact with commuters as they approached an express train linking city and suburb and, 20 minutes later, as commuters left the same train. During both the morning rush from suburb to city and the evening rush from city to suburb, commuters were less willing to meet an experimenter's eye at the city train station than at the suburban station. These results support the hypothesis that reduced eye contact with strangers in the city is a short-term adaptation to interpersonal overload in the city. Most generally the results indicate a convergence of laboratory and field data toward the conclusion that crowding effects on behavior are best understood as adaptation to interpersonal overload.

Targets of gazing and eye contact during interviews: effect on Japanese nonverbal behavior.

The gaze direction of both the subject and his interviewer were varied independently, such that either looked at the other's eyes or at the other's knees in a 2 X 2 design. A repeated measures design was used with nonverbal vehaviors of Japanese manes as dependent variables. When the interviewers gazed at the subjects' eyes, the response latencies of the subjects were shortened and their torso movements were reduced. Results from other studies of Japanese nonverbal behavior suggest that this pattern of response indicated greater subject invlovement in the interaction. The magnitude of these effects was unchanged whether the subject was reciprocating the interviewer's gaze and making eye contact or looking at the interviewer's knees. It was thus reasoned that effects produced by eye contact in other research may have resulted from subjects' knowledge that they were being gazed at and not from the unique properties of eye contact. When the subjects gazed at the interviewer's eyes, the hand self-manipulations of the subjects increased, reflecting the upsetting effects of monitoring the interviewer's face during interaction. The consequences of gazing at another's eyes thus appear to be different from having one's eyes gazed at by another.

Targets of gazing and eye contact during interviews: Effect on Japanese nonverbal behavior.

The gaze direction of both the subject and his interviewer were varied independently, such that either looked at the other's eyes or at the other's knees in a 2 X 2 design. A repeated measures design was used with nonverbal vehaviors of Japanese manes as dependent variables. When the interviewers gazed at the subjects' eyes, the response latencies of the subjects were shortened and their torso movements were reduced. Results from other studies of Japanese nonverbal behavior suggest that this pattern of response indicated greater subject invlovement in the interaction. The magnitude of these effects was unchanged whether the subject was reciprocating the interviewer's gaze and making eye contact or looking at the interviewer's knees. It was thus reasoned that effects produced by eye contact in other research may have resulted from subjects' knowledge that they were being gazed at and not from the unique properties of eye contact. When the subjects gazed at the interviewer's eyes, the hand self-manipulations of the subjects increased, reflecting the upsetting effects of monitoring the interviewer's face during interaction. The consequences of gazing at another's eyes thus appear to be different from having one's eyes gazed at by another.

The development of socialization skills in an electively mute child

In a booth designed especially for work with both autistic and electively mute children, a 4-yr-old girl named Dolly, who had no communicative speech or imitative skills, was given a preliminary session in which her verbal output was assessed. To elicit sounds from Dolly, an instrument called a “color organ” was used as a positive reinforcer. After this baseline assessment, in 40 half-hour sessions, Dolly was taught to make eye contact with E, and to obey instructions—although it was first necessary to extinguish her disruptive behavior, particularly her opérant crying. In addition, she learned non-verbal imitative behavior, such as hand clapping; and verbal imitative behavior, such as saying “Hi!” Social (play) sessions were begun after session 21, and continued for the remaining time. These were helpful in generalizing Dolly's learned skills to an environment other than the booth; and to other tasks, such as singing “Ee-eye-ee-eye-oh” in the refrain of the song, “Old McDonald”; and pointing to E's eyes, saying “ice”.