What does gazing do

Recent evidence has also found that when participants view social naturalistic scenes low-level salient features are less important, and participants primarily fixate on the faces and eyes of people in the scene Nasiopoulos et al. This suggests that there is an implicit preferential bias to attend to others in social scenes to obtain information about them Nasiopoulos et al.

In the same way that non-social task goals e. This top-down bias is particularly important in the context of active sensing, since the task goal will modify the reward value of each location in the visual scene and, in turn, determine which information needs to be maximized Jeong et al.

Active sensing provides a useful framework to understand how eye movements are planned to process non-social stimuli e. In both cases, the saccade planner combines bottom-up and top-down features in a priority or sensing map to maximize information relevant for the task and decide where gaze is next directed Yang et al.

However, in the case of face-to-face interactions, our gaze not only needs to maximize the information gained but also send signals to another person i.

Research on animal communication has explored in detail the question of what behavior counts as a social signal and what message if any is sent Stegmann, A cue is a behavior or feature that can be used by another creature to guide its behavior; for example, mosquitoes use the increased carbon dioxide in exhaled air as a cue to find people to bite, but there is no benefit here to those sending the cue.

In contrast, the mating call of a bird that attracts a mate acts as a signal because it benefits both sender and receiver Stegmann, A key way to distinguish between these is that signals are sent with the purpose of having an effect on another individual, which means they are more likely to be sent when they can be received.

In the context of human interaction, signals are sent when another person is present an audience effect but should not be sent when a person acts alone. A stronger definition of explicit and deliberate signaling might require sending a signal repeatedly or elaborating on the signal until it is received.

However, based on animal communication models Stegmann, , we will use a minimal definition of communication where signals are sent implicitly. As described above, our eyes can act both as a cue to our current thoughts e. This means that, in line with signaling theory, in face-to-face interactions our eye movements are constantly planned so as to send signals to others, and not just to gain information from the world. We propose that the signaling function of gaze creates a signaling map in the brain equivalent to the sensing map generated by the sensing function.

In the same way that sensing maps show where to look to gain information, we hypothesize that signaling maps are computed in the brain to show where to look to send an appropriate signal to another person.

First, the value of each gaze target in the signaling map will vary depending on the communicative purpose, that is, the type of message we wish to send. Just as saliency maps incorporate the task goal to create priority or sensing maps of visual attention, signaling maps need to take into account the communicative purpose.

Imagine a waiting room with two people, where one person A wants to engage in an interaction, but the other person B does not. For person A, who wishes to interact with person B, the optimal signaling behavior is to direct her gaze when person B is also looking at her, in order to disclose interest in the interaction. Directing her gaze when B is not looking has little benefit, because the signal will not be received.

Equally, for person B the optimal signaling behavior is to avert gaze specifically when A is looking at her. This illustrates how the values associated with each location in the signaling map changes on a moment-by-moment basis, contingent on the gaze direction of the other person and in relation to communicative purpose.

Finally, the signaling map depends on the need to coordinate with other social signals that are sent in multimodal communication, such as speech or gestures Vigliocco et al. This is particularly relevant for explicit communicative encounters.

Imagine that person A and B in the waiting room are now engaged in a lively conversation: to signal interest in keeping the conversation going, the choice of direct or averted gaze will vary depending on the role of each partner in the conversation, as well as the time-course of speech itself.

For instance, when person A starts speaking, she may avert gaze every now and then to signal she still has more things to say Kendon, ; Ho et al. While person B is listening, her gaze may be directed toward person A in order to signal interest in what A is saying Kendon, ; Ho et al. However, when person A is finishing the utterance, she may look toward person B to signal that she can take the floor Kendon, ; Ho et al. Thus, the coordination with other social signals also modulates the optimal location in the signaling map on a moment-by-moment basis.

Signaling theory provides a framework to understand how the communicative function of gaze shapes the planning of eye movements during face-to-face interactions. In the following, we propose a model where both active sensing and social signaling are combined to make sense of gaze patterns in human-to-human communication. The Interpersonal Gaze Processing model considers how gaze transitions from one state to the other i. This model distinguishes between two situations that differ in the belief in being watched: one where the social stimulus is a picture or video i.

Figure 3. The Interpersonal Gaze Processing model in a social scene. A Planning gaze when watching a video. B Planning gaze in a live interaction. Blurbs indicate areas of high saliency depending on the type of map.

In the first case, where the stimulus is a picture or video of another person, there is no need to send a signal because it will not be perceived. Thus, the planning of eye movements only responds to active sensing, which aims to gain maximal information from the stimulus Yang et al.

The Interpersonal Gaze Processing model considers that gaze patterns derived from active sensing correspond to baseline gaze behavior. When the goal is to get social information from the picture or video e. This baseline sensing map reveals how people use gaze to gain different types of social information during interactions. For example, in a noisy environment where it is hard to hear, they will look more to the center of the face to help with speech comprehension; conversely, to recognize emotions they will look more to the eyes Buchan et al.

This also demonstrates how task goals e. In the second case, where the stimulus is a real person in front of us, our eyes will be sending a signal to the other person. Here, the Interpersonal Gaze Processing model proposes that gaze patterns result from a trade-off between sensing maps and signaling maps see Figures 2 , 3B. This means that the planning of eye movements combines the maximal gain of information from a particular location in the sensing map e.

Figure 4 illustrates how different possible gaze targets on the face of the man can provide various types of information to the woman sensing function , but also can send different signals to the man signaling function. Comparing baseline gaze behavior in a video to gaze behavior in a matched real-life interaction, can provide a measure of the signaling components of eye gaze.

For example, some studies show that people direct gaze to the eyes of a stranger in a video, but not to the eyes of a live stranger: this indicates that averting gaze from the real person has a meaningful signaling value, since it expresses no desire to affiliate with the stranger and reduces the intensity of the interaction Argyle and Dean, ; Foulsham et al.

This example considers the case of watching a stranger with a rather neutral face, but another interesting situation is that where partners show emotional facial expressions. Although this scenario has not yet been tested, it would give further insight on how sensing maps and signaling maps are integrated during gaze planning. Moreover, we acknowledge there may also be changes in arousal in association with being watched by a live person Zajonc, ; Myllyneva and Hietanen, ; Lyyra et al.

Figure 4. Different sensing and signaling maps may be used in different contexts. Thus, the Interpersonal Gaze Processing model proposes that, moment-by-moment, the gaze control systems in the brain must evaluate both the information gained and the signaling potential of a saccade, to determine where to look next.

This model and other theories of the audience effect i. By contrast, the Interpersonal Gaze Processing model places special emphasis on communicative purpose and coordination with other social signals e. Future studies on gaze processing should try to elucidate how each of these factors modulates gaze sensing and signaling during communication, as well as if and how these maps are computed and integrated in the brain. Autism Spectrum Condition ASC is a developmental condition characterized by difficulties in interpersonal interaction and communication, as well as the presence of restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior American Psychological Association, Since eye gaze has a critical role in regulating social interactions and enabling successful communicative exchanges, it is not surprising that the presence of abnormal gaze patterns is one of the most used diagnostic criteria for ASC from early infancy Zwaigenbaum et al.

Although research into gaze behavior in autistic adults has identified some general patterns, it has also yielded some inconsistent findings: some studies using pictures and videos suggest that they avoid looking at the eyes, whereas others indicate that they have typical gaze patterns Falck-Ytter and Von Hofsten, ; Chita-Tegmark, ; Frazier et al. Some of these discrepancies may be a consequence of the wide spectrum in autistic individuals, but in line with the second-person neuroscience framework Schilbach et al.

Moreover, a recent qualitative study highlights that self-declared autistic adolescents and adults struggle with the appropriate use and timing of eye gaze during face-to-face interactions Trevisan et al. These findings suggest that to fully understand autistic social cognition it is necessary to examine how they process social signals in real dynamic interactions.

We have previously presented two distinct cognitive theories to explain audience effects: the Watching Eyes model Conty et al. Both theories involve mentalizing and distinction between self-beliefs and other-beliefs, either to process the perceptual state of the observer Teufel et al.

This means that mentalizing is a key cognitive component of audience effects Hamilton and Lind, Thus, impaired mentalizing in autistic people implies that being watched will elicit less self-related processing and reputation management, and they will show reduced audience effects Hamilton and Lind, To our knowledge, no studies have directly tested the Watching Eyes model on autistic individuals, but instead have looked at differences in self-referential processing between typical and autistic populations.

Lombardo et al. These studies suggest that autistic people have a general impairment in processing self-related information as distinct from other-related information, already when they are in a non-interactive environment. Interestingly, it has recently been suggested that autistic people might have a narrower cone of direct gaze i.

Thus, a plausible prediction is that autistic individuals will fail to process self-relevant signals in interactive environments, such as the belief in being watched Conty et al. Studies directly testing effects of being watched on self-referential processing will be needed to clarify this question. In contrast, a body of research has investigated reputation management in autism. Using the donation task, it has been found that the frequency of donations of autistic participants is not affected by the presence or absence of a confederate who is watching them Izuma et al.

It is worth noting that Izuma et al. Cage et al. Moreover, autistic children do not engage in flattery behavior toward others Chevallier et al. These findings demonstrate that autistic people are less inclined to manipulate beliefs of observers to maintain their reputation, either due to mentalizing impairments Frith, or to social motivation deficits Chevallier et al.

However, it is not clear how social norms of eye gaze i. A study by von dem Hagen and colleagues approached this question in typical individuals with high and low autistic traits Von dem Hagen and Bright, , Experiment 1. Participants were shown videos of a confederate and were deceived to believe that the videos were either pre-recorded or a live video-feed.

They found that people with low autistic traits decreased the amount of gaze directed to the face of the confederate in the live video-feed condition, but no reduction was found in the group with higher autism traits. This finding indicates some degree of insensitivity to the belief in being watched and, consequently, to social norms associated with social behavior toward strangers. However, it remains to be seen whether these findings are true for individuals with an ASC diagnosis.

Few studies have looked at how gaze patterns differ between typical and autistic groups during interactions with communicative purpose, and the evidence is mixed. For instance, when asked to actively engage in an interaction QandA task over a video-feed, individuals with high autistic traits looked less toward the face of the confederate than individuals with low autistic traits Von dem Hagen and Bright, , Experiment 2. Using a similar QandA task in a face-to-face interaction, it was found that high amount of autistic traits was not associated to reduced looking to the face, but to reduced visual exploration Vabalas and Freeth, However, in a study testing a sample with autism diagnosis, no differences in visual exploration were found between typical and autistic groups Freeth and Bugembe, It is worth noting that in all these studies they found no between-group differences in gaze patterns during speaking and listening periods i.

We previously argued that in communicative encounters direct eye gaze needs to coordinate with other verbal and non-verbal signals, within and between agents, to successfully exchange information Bavelas et al. Several studies indicate that autistic individuals do not use direct gaze as a signal to coordinate intra- and inter-personal social behavior in the same way that typical participants do. Moreover, while in typical individuals direct gaze reduces reaction times to generate an action Schilbach et al.

Similarly, when participants interact with a virtual avatar that displays contingent gaze patterns, autistic children show less gaze following Little et al. These findings suggest that reduced coordination between eye gaze and other social behavior may have an impact on the successful progression of the interaction.

A reason why autistic people show poor coordination of social behavior could stem from difficulties in appropriately adjusting gaze to the dynamics of communication. It has been found that infants at high risk for ASC alternate less between initiating and responding to joint attention compared to infants at low risk Thorup et al. This means that, since early infancy, individuals at high risk for ASC experience less dynamic social contexts and less variety in gaze-contingent events.

Using a gaze-contingent eye-tracking paradigm with virtual avatars, Caruana et al. These findings suggest that difficulties in adjusting eye contact make it hard for autistic individuals to keep pace with rapid and spontaneous face-to-face interactions. It has been suggested that a lack of exposure to contingent eye gaze in infancy can impact the specialization of brain areas related to gaze processing Vernetti et al.

Indeed, a study using live video-feed found that some regions in the social neural network superior temporal sulcus and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex are equally engaged during periods of joint attention and periods of no joint attention in ASC Redcay et al. This is corroborated by previous studies using non-interactive stimuli, where they found abnormal activation of the social neural network e. Moreover, a hyperscanning study using live video-feed Tanabe et al. Thus, these studies suggest that atypical intra- and inter-individual patterns of neural activity in response to direct gaze may underlie difficulties in detecting, processing and sending social signals in autism.

Overall, these findings indicate that autistic individuals have difficulties with social dynamics of gaze in real interactions. However, current research is not enough to clearly distinguish which cognitive components of eye gaze processing are most disrupted in autism.

In this sense, the Interpersonal Gaze Processing model Figures 2 , 3 provides common ground where studies manipulating various gaze-related factors can come together. We previously suggested that comparing gaze patterns in a video versus a matched real-life interaction provides a measure of the signaling components of eye gaze. If autistic people do not engage in social signaling, the Interpersonal Gaze Processing model predicts that their gaze patterns in live and video conditions should be similar, which is in line with recent evidence Von dem Hagen and Bright, Future research should try to systematically study which factors modulating gaze signaling make interpersonal gaze processing challenging in autism.

Natural social interactions are characterized by complex exchanges of social signals, so achieving successful communication can be challenging.

This paper aimed to review research manipulating three key factors that modulate eye gaze processing during social interactions: the presence of an interacting partner who can perceive me, the existence of communicative purpose, and the development of interpersonal and temporal dynamics. Current findings indicate that the belief in being watched has a strong impact on other-focused social cognition both on prosocial behavior and social norms of eye gaze , but evidence is less clear for self-focused cognition: future studies should clarify to what extent being watched affects different forms of self-related processes.

We also find that, to achieve successful communication, eye gaze needs to coordinate with verbal and non-verbal social signals, both within and between interacting partners. We propose the Interpersonal Gaze Processing model as a framework where gaze sensing and signaling are combined to determine where the eyes will look next in a live interaction. In this model, the belief in being watched and the communicative purpose of the interaction are key to define the gaze signaling map, while the contingencies between different signaling modalities e.

Systematic manipulation of these factors could help elucidate how they relate to each other to enable successful communicative encounters, as well as how signaling maps are computed in the brain. Finally, research on autistic individuals reveals that they are less sensitive to the belief in being watched, but more studies are needed to clarify how the presence of an audience impacts self-related processing in autism. Although evidence on interpersonal dynamics is mixed, it is agreed that autistic individuals have difficulties with social dynamics of eye gaze during real interactions.

We argue that the Interpersonal Gaze Processing model provides a framework for future studies to systematically characterize which aspects of gaze communication are most challenging for autistic people. RC wrote the initial draft of the manuscript and prepared the figures. AH made critical revisions to the original draft. RC and AH approved the final version of the manuscript. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

American Psychological Association Argyle, M. Gaze and Mutual Gaze. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar. Eye-contact, distance and affilitation. Sociometry 28, — Baltazar, M. Eye contact elicits bodily self-awareness in human adults. Cognition , — Baron-Cohen, S.

Moore and P. Reading the eyes: evidence for the role of perception in the development of a theory of mind. Mind Lang. Evidence from normal adults, and adults with autism or Asperger syndrome. Visual Cogn. Bavelas, J. Listener responses as a collaborative process: the role of gaze. Bayliss, A. Gaze leading: initiating simulated joint attention influences eye movements and choice behavior. Beattie, G. A further investigation of the cognitive inference hypothesis of gaze patterns during conversation.

Blascovich, J. Effects of observing eye contact on gaze following in high-functioning autism. Bond, C. Social facilitation: a self-presentational view. Bradley, A.

Does observability affect prosociality? B Biol. Buchan, J. Spatial statistics of gaze fixations during dynamic face processing. The effect of varying talker identity and listening conditions on gaze behavior during audiovisual speech perception. Brain Res. Cage, E. Reputation management: evidence for ability but reduced propensity in autism. Cameron, O. Interoception: the inside story - a model for psychosomatic processes. Caruana, N. A frontotemporoparietal network common to initiating and responding to joint attention bids.

NeuroImage , 34— Joint attention difficulties in autistic adults: an interactive eye-tracking study. Autism 22, — Image credits. Word of the Day sweetheart. Blog Outsets and onsets! Read More. November 08, To top. English American Examples Translations.

Sign up for free and get access to exclusive content:. Free word lists and quizzes from Cambridge. Tools to create your own word lists and quizzes. Word lists shared by our community of dictionary fans. Sign up now or Log in. Definitions Clear explanations of natural written and spoken English.

Click on the arrows to change the translation direction. Follow us. Choose a dictionary. Clear explanations of natural written and spoken English. Usage explanations of natural written and spoken English. Grammar Thesaurus.

Word Lists. Peter Marks January 20, Washington Post. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. January, Davy and The Goblin Charles E. Confidence Henry James. Glances at Europe Horace Greeley. Derived forms of gaze gazer , noun. To start, try eye gazing with your partner for 30 seconds. Keep your gaze soft and relaxed. As you become more comfortable with the practice, you can increase your sessions to 10 to 20 minutes. Liars avoid eye contact, right? Learn this and other misconceptions about the messages we all send with our baby blues.

Ommetaphobia is an intense fear of eyes. It can be related to social anxiety, doctor visits, and other causes. Pent-up anger getting the best of you? Learn how to release it in a productive way. Being touch starved — also known as skin hunger or touch deprivation — occurs when a person experiences little to no touch from other living things….

Some people believe that they're a newly discovered…. What are emotional needs, exactly? We break it down and give you 10 basic ones to consider. Fear of commitment can pose a big challenge in long-term relationships.

Here's a guide to identifying potential commitment issues and overcoming them.