Making Eye Contact Research Articles

The evolutionary origins of natural pedagogy: Rhesus monkeys show sustained attention following nonsocial cues versus social communicative signals

The natural pedagogy hypothesis proposes that human infants preferentially attend to communicative signals from others, facilitating rapid cultural learning. In this view, sensitivity to such signals is a uniquely human adaptation and as such nonhuman animals should not produce or utilize these communicative signals. We test these evolutionary predictions by examining sensitivity to communicative cues in 206 rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) using an expectancy looking time task modeled on prior work with infants. Monkeys observed a human actor who either made eye contact and vocalized to the monkey (social cue), or waved a fruit in front of her face and produced a tapping sound (nonsocial cue). The actor then either looked at an object (referential look) or looked toward empty space (look away). We found that, unlike human infants in analogous situations, rhesus monkeys looked longer at events following nonsocial cues, regardless of the demonstrator's subsequent looking behavior. Moreover younger and older monkeys showed similar patterns of responses across development. These results provide support for the natural pedagogy hypothesis, while also highlighting evolutionary changes in human sensitivity to communicative signals.

Child psychiatry in China: Present situation and future prospects.

Child psychiatry in China: Present situation and future prospects.

New York City Training Programs, Residents Take On COVID-19

New York City Training Programs, Residents Take On COVID-19

More than a statistic

I pretended I was the only person in the room, avoiding the intake nurse’s attempts to make eye contact. I read the pharmaceutical posters on the walls. I stared at the medical equipment littered around the room. I occupied myself, nervously fidgeting with my hands — hands that had become clammy

Development of clinical prediction rule for diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorder in children.

This study aims to develop a clinical prediction rule for the diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) in children. This population-based study was carried out in children aged 2 to 5 years who were suspected of having ASD. Data regarding demographics, risk factors, histories taken from caregivers and clinical observation of ASD symptoms were recorded before specialists assessed patients using standardized diagnostic tools. The predictors were analyzed by multivariate logistic regression analysis and developed into a predictive model. An ASD diagnosis was rendered in 74.8 per cent of 139 participants. The clinical prediction rule consisted of five predictors, namely, delayed speech for their age, history of rarely making eye contact or looking at faces, history of not showing off toys or favorite things, not following clinician's eye direction and low frequency of social interaction with the clinician or the caregiver. At four or more predictors, sensitivity was 100 per cent for predicting a diagnosis of ASD, with a positive likelihood ratio of 16.62. This practical clinical prediction rule would help general practitioners to initially diagnose ASD in routine clinical practice.

Eye contact boosts the reflexive component of overt gaze following

Establishing eye contact with an individual can subsequently lead to a stronger gaze-mediated orienting effect. However, studies exploring this phenomenon have, so far, only assessed manual responses and focused on covert attention – namely, without eye movements. Here, in two experiments, we explored for the first time whether eye contact can also impact on overt attention in an oculomotor task. This approach has two main advantages, in that it relies on more sensitive, online measures of attention allocation and it better mimics real life settings. Participants performed leftwards and rightwards eye movements in response to a central cue. Furthermore, a task-irrelevant central face established – or not – eye contact with the participant, and then averted its gaze either leftwards or rightwards. Hence, eye movement direction was either congruent or incongruent with that of the gaze stimulus. In both experiments, a gaze following behaviour emerged – specifically, smaller saccadic latencies and a greater accuracy emerged on congruent than on incongruent trials – but its magnitude was not modulated by eye contact. However, in Experiment 2 – in which the different eye contact conditions were presented intermixed rather than blocked, thus making eye contact contextually salient – eye contact led to an overall decrement of saccadic latencies and enhanced the reflexive component of gaze following. Taken together, these results provide novel evidence indicating that eye contact can impact on both eye movements programming and overt gaze following mechanisms, at least when eye contact is made contextually salient.

My Two-Minute Drill (Lapels and All)

My Two-Minute Drill (Lapels and All)

Gaze-Height and Speech-Timing Effects on Feeling Robot-Initiated Touches

This paper reports the effects of communication cues on robot-initiated touch interactions at close distance by focusing on two factors: gaze-height for making eye contact and speech timing before and after touches. Although both factors are essential to achieve acceptable touches in human-human touch interaction, their effectiveness remains unknown in human-robot touch interaction contexts. To investigate the effects of these factors, we conducted an experiment whose results showed that being touched with before-touch timing is preferred to being touched with after-touch timing, although gaze-height did not significantly improve the feelings of robot-initiated touch.

The Ethics of Human Intervention on Behalf of ‘Others’

I regularly pass several homeless persons surviving on the streets even in winter. One sits on a folded scrap of a blanket leaning against a wall looking thin, pale and resigned, doing some calligraphy of messages on card for those who want them. Almost everyone walks quickly past, some manoeuvring to the opposite side of the wide pavement, others almost treading on some of their sparse belongings. Hardly anyone makes eye contact. The harsh reality of living on the street is some days without enough food and basic provisions.

Task-related gaze control in human crowd navigation

Human crowds provide an interesting case for research on the perception of people. In this study, we investigate how visual information is acquired for (1) navigating human crowds and (2) seeking out social affordances in crowds by studying gaze behavior during human crowd navigation under different task instructions. Observers (n = 11) wore head-mounted eye-tracking glasses and walked two rounds through hallways containing walking crowds (n = 38) and static objects. For round one, observers were instructed to avoid collisions. For round two, observers furthermore had to indicate with a button press whether oncoming people made eye contact. Task performance (walking speed, absence of collisions) was similar across rounds. Fixation durations indicated that heads, bodies, objects, and walls maintained gaze comparably long. Only crowds in the distance maintained gaze relatively longer. We find no compelling evidence that human bodies and heads hold one’s gaze more than objects while navigating crowds. When eye contact was assessed, heads were fixated more often and for a total longer duration, which came at the cost of looking at bodies. We conclude that gaze behavior in crowd navigation is task-dependent, and that not every fixation is strictly necessary for navigating crowds. When explicitly tasked with seeking out potential social affordances, gaze is modulated as a result. We discuss our findings in the light of current theories and models of gaze behavior. Furthermore, we show that in a head-mounted eye-tracking study, a large degree of experimental control can be maintained while many degrees of freedom on the side of the observer remain.

Preoperative Nursing Care to Reduce Anxiety of Parent from Cancer Patient in Paediatric Surgical Ward

<p><strong>Objective: </strong>Cancer or malignant tumors are one of the most experienced diseases in the world. The therapy to treat cancer requires a comprehensive examination, one of which is by doing a biopsy. Biopsy is a procedure that can cause anxiety in parents of children with cancer. One of the way to reduce anxiety in parents of children with cancer is to do preoperative education. The purpose of study was to determine the effects of preoperative education on anxiety in parents of cancer patients.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>This was a case study of preoperative care to reduce anxiety of parents whose child has cancer and will undergo a surgery. The intervention included anticipatory guidance and preoperative education. Anticipatory guidance was given by actively listening to parents and child’s concerns and assist them to learn deep breathing relaxation techniques, and distraction. The preoperative education was given using a flipchart containing information pertaining to the location and time of surgery, preoperative preparation, surgical procedures, and postoperative care.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Parents’ anxiety declined from the score of 7 to 3. She also expressed the feeling of relieved. She looked calmer, focused and made eye contact. <strong></strong></p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Patient education along with anticipatory guidance needs to be provided by nurses during preoperative stage to reduce both parents and patients’ anxiety.</p><p class="AbstractContent"><strong>Key</strong><strong> </strong><strong>words:</strong> cancer, anxiety, parents, preoperative education</p>

Social Glasses: Simulating Interactive Gaze for Visually Impaired People in Face-to-Face Communication

ABSTRACTEye contact is crucial in social interactions, linking with sincerity and friendliness. However, blind people cannot see and make eye contact when they communicate with sighted people. It influences the involvement of blind people in blind-sighted conversations. Based on this context, we implemented Social glasses with an eye-tracking system, aiming to improve the communication quality between blind and sighted people in face-to-face conversations. Social glasses attempts to simulate the appropriate gaze for blind people, especially establishing the “eye contact” in blind-sighted conversations. To evaluate the impact of the interactive gaze displayed on the Social glasses, we performed dyadic-conversation tests under four experimental conditions (No Gaze, Constant Gaze, Random Gaze, and Interactive Gaze) for 40 participants. Quantitative results showed that the Interactive gaze has a positive impact on improving the communication quality between blind and sighted people, which were consistent with a qualitative analysis of the participants’ comments.

Gender Differences in Early Communication, Language Acquisition and Development: A Descriptive Study

Parents pay a significant attention to the first words children utter. However, first words are not the actual beginning of communication. Much earlier, babies begin to communicate their feeling via making eye contact, pointing, crying, squealing, and other gestures. Furthermore, they perceive language earlier than making others understand them. The aim of this paper is to tackle the variations between the two sexes starting from the stages of language acquisition in normal children, the differences between the two genders in language vocalization within each stage. Next, the distinctions in acquiring a particular communicative competence and the causes behind this difference will be tackled. It has been found that femals show superiority in bubbling, uttering the first word, number of vocabularies, sentence complexity, and clarity of articulation; however, the difference is only one- or two-months exceedance and it disappears by the age of four. Moreover, some domains of superiority in grammar and spelling disappear in adolescence. It is also found that parents play a vital role in the accelerating language acquisition. Boys are more physically played with by the fathers, while girls are more talked to verbally by mothers. Psychological studies of language acquisition argue that girls’ brain develops certain aspects of language faster than the boys’ and vice versa, other aspects are more developed in boys than in girls. Finally, differences in the communicative competence are caused by the styles that children acquire from their parents and/or peer groups

Empathy and experience: understanding tourists’ swim with whale encounters

ABSTRACTWhale-related tourism is an increasingly popular activity which may be used to drive conservation efforts. This study explored the relationships between empathy, conservation behaviors, anthropomorphism, connectedness to nature, and experiences of whale watchers and swim-with whale tourists. Participants (n = 45) from Australia and the Kingdom of Tonga completed trait questionnaires pre-swim and then questionnaires relating to their experience at post-swim. The predictions of the dispositional empathy with nature theory were supported as empathy was associated with higher anthropomorphism, connectedness to nature, and greater intention to engage in conservation behavior. Females were also higher than males on empathy. Being close to the whales, making eye contact, and seeing calves resulted in greater enjoyment. Understanding the potential connection visitors may have during a whale encounter will enhance experience design and identify avenues to increase conservation efforts.

The Quality of Interactions Schedule (QuIS) and person-centred care: Concurrent validity in acute hospital settings.

BackgroundThere is a lack of consensus on how the practices of health care workers may be assessed and measured in relation to compassion. The Quality of Interactions Schedule (QuIS) is a promising measure that uses independent observers to assess the quality of social interactions between staff and patients in a healthcare context. Further understanding of the relationship between QuIS and constructs such as person-centred care would be helpful to guide its future use in health research.ObjectiveThis study aimed to assess the validity of QuIS in relation to person-centred care measured using the CARES® Observational Tool (COT™).Methods168 nursing staff-patient care interactions on adult inpatient units in two acute care UK National Health Service hospitals were observed and rated using QuIS and COT™. Analyses explored the relationship between summary and individual item COT™ scores and the likelihood of a negative (lower quality) QuIS rating.ResultsAs the degree of person-centred care improved, QuIS negative ratings generally decreased and positive social ratings increased. QuIS-rated negative interactions were associated with an absence of some behaviours, in particular staff approaching patients from the front (relative risk (RR) 3.7), introducing themselves (RR 3.1), smiling and making eye contact (RR 3.4), and involving patients in their care (RR 3.7).ConclusionThese findings provide further information about the validity of QuIS measurements in healthcare contexts, and the extent to which it can be used to reflect the quality of relational care even for people who are unable to self-report.

Investigation of Science Project Performances of Gifted and Talented Students

The purpose of the study is to analyze gifted and talented students’ project performances and views about them. In the study, explanatory sequential design, which is one of the mixed method research designs, was applied. In the quantitative phase of the study, project performances of the students were identified, while, in the qualitative phase, their views on their performances were determined. The study group consisted of the students who were enrolled in the Support Program at a Science and Arts Center during the 2017-2018 education year. According to quantitative findings, during the project preparation process, the students exhibit “fairly good” performance in producing ideas from science-related life, producing ideas for their needs and creating hypothesis about the problem. In qualitative findings, the students are seen to have no difficulty in producing ideas, as a result of which they can immediately produce ideas on their own. As regards to the project process and project content, they are observed to show “fairly good” performance in self-deciding on the sources and materials to be used for testing the hypothesis and sharing the research findings with the teacher and class while showing “satisfactory” performance in testing the hypothesis. The students stated that they did research, tested hypothesis and made inferences for hypothesis testing. They performed “fairly good” in using fluent and clear language in presentation, making the presentation within the given time and making eye contact with the audience. They expressed their opinion that they made an effective presentation as well as they were not satisfied with the presentation.

The effects of human attentional state on canine gazing behaviour: a comparison of free-ranging, shelter, and pet dogs.

The ability of animals to communicate using gaze is a rich area of research. How domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) use and respond to the gaze of humans is an area of particular interest. This study examined how three groups of domestic dogs from different populations (free-ranging dogs, pet dogs, and shelter dogs) responded to a human during three attentional state conditions: when the human was making eye contact (attentive), when the human was turned away (inattentive), and when the human exited the testing area. We found that dogs from different populations differed in their gazing behaviour. Free-ranging dogs responded to the human's change in attentional state by looking significantly less at the human in the inattentive condition compared to the attentive condition. Pet and shelter dogs did not differ in their gazing behaviour between these conditions. However, they gazed significantly more at the human in both the inattentive and attentive conditions compared to the free-ranging dogs and also spent more time in the proximity of the experimenter. This study suggests that life experience plays an important role in how dogs respond to the attentional state of a human.

Using a guest- and confederate-delivered token economy to increase employee-guest interactions at a zoo.

The present study used a token economy to promote guest greetings by employees at a zoological facility. Guests and confederate guests delivered tokens to zoo employees for making eye contact from 10 ft (3.05 m) away and verbally greeting guests from 5 ft (1.52 m) away (called a 10-5 interaction) and the tokens were exchangeable for small prizes. An ABAB design was used to evaluate the intervention. Results showed increases of 35.3 and 45.0% in correct employee-guest interactions in each intervention phase compared to baseline, thus suggesting that a guest-delivered token economy is an effective way to improve guest greetings. Limitations of the current study and opportunities for future research are discussed.

Eye Contact Is a Two-Way Street: Arousal Is Elicited by the Sending and Receiving of Eye Gaze Information.

Research shows that arousal is significantly enhanced while participants make eye contact with a live person compared to viewing a picture of direct or averted gaze. Recent research has pointed toward the potential for social interaction as a possible driving force behind the arousal enhancement. That is, eye gaze is not only a signal perceived but also a signal sent out in order to communicate with others. This study aimed to test this by having dyads engage in eye contact and averted gaze naturally, while wearing sunglasses, and while blindfolded; such that the gaze signals were clear, degraded, and blocked, respectively. Autonomic nervous system arousal was measured via skin conductance response and level. The results showed that dyads exhibited the highest degree of arousal (increased skin conductance) while making eye contact (send/receive) compared to send-only or receive-only gaze trials; however, this was only the case if eye contact was clear. Once gaze information became degraded (by sunglasses or blindfold), arousal significantly decreased and was no longer modulated by the sending and receiving of gaze. Therefore, the arousal enhancement observed during eye contact is not only caused by receiving gaze signals (the focus of previous research) and should be more accurately attributed to the subtle interplay between sending and receiving gaze signals.

A letter to my neurosurgeon.

I last saw you 17 years ago. I was being discharged from your postoperative practice. I thanked you as if you had been my taxi driver. Brisk. Informal. I didn’t even make eye contact. I wanted out. I was 19 years old. I didn’t want to be sick any more. I wanted it all to be over. I wanted to