Contact is in the eye of the beholder: the eye contact illusion
Abstract
In a simple experiment, we demonstrate that you don’t need to mindfully look at the eyes of your audience to be perceived as making eye contact during face-to-face conversation. Simply gazing somewhere around the face/head area will suffice. Or to borrow a term from Mareschal and colleagues, direct gaze will suffice. For those readers who experience anxiety when gazing specifically at another person’s eyes, or when being gazed at, we expect this is welcome news. © The Author(s) 2019.
Document Type
Journal Article
Date of Publication
1-1-2019
Publication Title
Perception
Publisher
Sage Publications Ltd
School
School of Arts and Humanities
RAS ID
28904
Copyright
subscription content
Comments
Rogers, S. L., Guidetti, O., Speelman, C. P., Longmuir, M., & Phillips, R. (2019). Contact is in the eye of the beholder: The eye contact illusion. Perception, 48(3), 248-252. Available here.