31 ms·

Eye contact marks the rise and fall of shared attention in conversation

• oezi 4y ago
  Probably the key reason why online meetings where eye contact is impossible never feel engaging. The cool tech demos from Nvidia and other which do gaze correction unfortunately didn't make it to Zoom or Teams.
  • duncan-donuts 4y ago
    I know I’m in the minority here but I’ve never experienced this. Eye contact for me is a deeply uncomfortable thing and I’ve struggled with it my whole life. I do make eye contact with people but I almost never sustain it for more than a couple seconds. I find online meetings to be pretty engaging most of the time. No less engaging than a meeting in an office with the same amount of participation.
    • swader999 4y ago
      Do you think you connect with others effectively in conversation? I struggle the same way and really have to focus on it.
    • euroderf 4y ago
      Yes. Eye contact can sometimes/often be unbearably intense. Not sure what the cure is.
      • swader999 4y ago
        Just more of it I think. It's like anything, practice it until it becomes second nature and you can even feel relaxed doing it.
    • tartoran 4y ago
      Yep, im one of these too and find online meetings more relaxing too. When I make (forced) eye contact I lose my train of thought and often have to glance at the ceiling or out in the distance when I’m in a deep conversation. But I adapted and I am comfortable not making eye contact when I deliver a speech. I may as well be on the spectrum somewhere as I’ve always been this way. The coping mechanisms I’ve built still don’t help not disturb my train of thought when making eye contact, I have no problem with the eye contact itself but it’s just too distracting sometimes.
    • dragontamer 4y ago
      In martial arts when I was younger, we spent at least a few sessions just staring at each other, to get comfortable / less awkward with looking at your opponent. That, along with taking punches to the stomach (We weren't very strong yet, so no worries about us actually injuring each other), just to get "used to getting hit", among other things... these kinds of training helps remove the mental blocks when you actually start to spar. I'd say that eye-contact is just one of those things you need to train for. I know I did, it helped me a lot inside of a sparring match to help me focus on the opponent rather than feeling awkward (they're looking at me kinda thing). ----- If you haven't had martial arts practice, then you could just practice eye-contact with your friends instead.
      • throw827474737 4y ago
        > I'd say that eye-contact is just one of those things you need to train for. But for why and what if I'm not into martial arts? Just for social norms and studies that say only then I am really engaged and pay attention, which is definitely not true for me?
        • oblak 4y ago
          Not that you care but I straight up ask people with sunglasses to take them off if they want to talk to me. I take covering your eyes as hiding.
          • Godel_unicode 4y ago
            That sounds incredibly rude to me.
            • beebeepka 4y ago
              To me it's rude to have sunglasses on
              • Godel_unicode 4y ago
    • dagmx 4y ago
      I think statistically you’re not in the minority. The two most populated countries in the world for example don’t encourage eye contact, and when you account for the large number of countries in Asia that similarly don’t, the statistical norm is to avoid eye contact.
      • duncan-donuts 4y ago
        Yeah in hindsight I’m probably not. Probably my own bias of 1) hearing from people that online communication just isn’t the same 2) my own struggle with eye contact 3) being American.
    • dazc 4y ago
      I have never been comfortable with direct eye contact but the funny thing is that I am often complemented on my eyes, which feels kind of weird but also makes me realize how other people can judge you in ways you wouldn't normally consider.
  • lelandfe 4y ago
    > The cool tech demos from Nvidia and other which do gaze correction unfortunately didn't make it to Zoom or Teams Apple's Facetime does this by default. It actually works quite well – none of my friends or family have ever noticed it. https://mashable.com/article/fake-eye-contact-on-facetime https://mashable.com/article/fake-eye-contact-on-facetime
  • BeetleB 4y ago
    Worth reading the other comments from people (and cultures!) that prefer little to no eye contact. A prior discussion on the topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33003356 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33003356 As I mentioned there, personally, once I switched to WFH once the pandemic started, this was a total non-issue for me. I even switched teams and had all brand new coworkers. They never saw me and I never saw them. Everyone's totally fine with it. I mean, for many of us, we've often had to have meetings/calls with people in another geo anyway. People talk on the phone all the time and I've yet to hear someone say they didn't feel engaged talking to someone on the phone because they couldn't make eye contact. People fall in love that way all the time.
• stevezsa8 4y ago
  Keep in mind that in some cultures eye-contact is avoided: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_contact#Cultural_differences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_contact#Cultural_differenc...
  • dagmx 4y ago
    Yeah coming from a culture where you were taught not to make eye contact and then going to a country where it’s rude to not look someone in the eye was very jarring. I still have to basically look at someone’s temple to get by, even a decade later. The discomfort of making eye contact is just so ingrained now.
    • stevezsa8 4y ago
      Yeah this is a common issue for people who move across cultures. I had a boss who said he only hires a certain ethnic group because they always take on more work and never say no. He had 2 of these people end up in hospital and a formal accusation of bullying against him... my conclusion was, he'd narrowed on a culture that is averse to social challenge / conflict. Where saying "no" would be socially unacceptable. But he wasn't aware of the flip-side... that the manager is then responsible for judging the situation and not making direct requests that are impossible to refuse.
      • dagmx 4y ago
        Yeah unfortunately I see that a ton as an Indian myself , where we’ve been taught to be submissive. Many of my other Indian coworkers are always too scared to push back in any form, and many of my Indian friends back in India would work till the early hours of the morning regularly. I’m lucky in the sense that I know to push back often when something doesn’t feel right or is illogical to me. Ironically I was often chided in high school for that as teachers would suggest that this would be bad for my career. It’s actually been the best thing for it, letting me become system architects at multiple large companies. But I see where they were coming from, in that the same attitude would have burned me if I’d stayed.
      • throwawaysleep 4y ago
• mberning 4y ago
  Maybe I’m a weirdo but I tend to look at peoples mouths more than their eyes. I’m not hard of hearing, but I feel like it helps me follow conversations better.
  • stevezsa8 4y ago
    The human body is giving non-verbal cues in many different ways. Maybe you've found something that works well for you.
  • csa 4y ago
    > I tend to look at peoples mouths more than their eyes Same. I’ve done this since I was a child. A side benefit is that I have become half way decent at reading lips. I learned at some point (teens?) to look at my conversation partner’s eyes in certain situations, but it’s not my default.
  • samtho 4y ago
    I actually found out I rely on lip reading during the pandemic when everyone was wearing masks and I couldn't understand about 2/3 people I was engaging with.
    • MichaelCollins 4y ago
      I have a similar problem, but I don't think lack of lip reading is the problem for me. I think a lot of people simply mumble when they have a mask on. Something about the sensation of the mask on their face has them start slurring words and speaking softly.
      • layer8 4y ago
        The mask itself muffles the sound.
        • MichaelCollins 4y ago
          Sure there's an element of that, but for some people it seems much worse than others. Some people can still speak clearly with a mask on, but many people can't.
• kitanata 4y ago
  … in Nuerotypical populations. This study mentions but provides no data or analysis for how their study is impacted by or was affected by the differences between nuerotypical and autistic samples. Which is a shame because as an autistic person who doesn’t like eye contact, I think those findings would have been much more insightful and potentially groundbreaking. My hope is the authors have plans to look closer at that.
  • ravenstine 4y ago
    Could you clarify what you might expect from a similar analysis performed on neuralatypicals? For example, would eye contact play little to no role in shared attention between two autistic people? I ask in part because I don't think I know that much about the autistic experience.
    • kitanata 4y ago
      I would suspect significantly reduced eye contact between autistic and Nuerotypicals and between autistic and autistic social pairings. My central question would be in high masking autistic individuals does there masking ability relate somehow to eye contact? And if so… by how much? Similarly in autistic-autistic pairings how much eye contact is required for autistic people to communicate well with each other? In my experience, and in some recent studies we see that autistic people can communicate seamlessly with other autistic people without the need for eye contact. This study asserts that eye contact is required for good social engagement and communication. What I am challenging is that that finding is probably only true in Nuerotypical samples and is probably not present in autistic people.
      • lstodd 4y ago
        So this.
      • _fat_santa 4y ago
        > And if so… by how much? Similarly in autistic-autistic pairings how much eye contact is required for autistic people to communicate well with each other? As a neurotypical person, this is actually pretty interesting to me as well. I live in the US and here we are always taught to make eye contact when speaking to someone, as it shows as sign that you are "engaged" with that person. It's something so ingrained in you from a young age here that you start to think that this is how all humans should communicate. Neurodivergent people just tend to ignore those social constructs, makes me wonder if we as neurotypical people play all these social games and a neurodivergent person just looks at all that as window dressing that isn't required.
• tgv 4y ago
  The abstract oversells it, as usual. The effects are small, and the modelling is loose. Other studies have shown that gestures can play a role in turn taking, and that we are capable of predicting when the speaker is going to finish simply by listening. Eye contact may be just one more factor weighing in.
  • hinkley 4y ago
    Is there a book out there on coaching people who are bad at 'finishing'? I have sympathy for people who have been institutionally censored and I feel properly guilty when we are interrupting them. But some people just go on and on, and/or telegraph false finishes, then try to invoke the same kind of courtesy when they are cut off.
• lvl102 4y ago
  I am not gonna lie, I don’t look at people in the eyes because I can sometimes see that they’re lying to my face. You don’t need to make such a personal connection every single time you engage in a conversation with people. Most people are not worth that type of attention.
  • iwillbenice 4y ago
  • Invictus0 4y ago
    This is sad
    • lvl102 4y ago
      No you’re sad.
  • MichaelCollins 4y ago
    > I don’t look at people in the eyes because I can sometimes see that they’re lying to my face. Ignorance is bliss I guess? I prefer to know. Usually I don't call people out, but I still prefer to know.
• sdwr 4y ago
  I love the direction, drilling down into conversation mechanics. Very cool that technology is enabling this kind of deep dive. It's a very conservative article tho, not making any big points. I'd like to see a stab at a theory that explains how conversation actually works. Intuitively, it feels like a hack built on top of systems designed for acting in the world. I think social position is written on the face. The labiofacial folds measure exclusion (deep lines indicate social isolation/discomfort, no crease indicates strong social ties). Feels tied in with nervous laughter as well. Eye openness
  • oblak 4y ago
    First year phrenology student? Seriously, though. As I get older, I am starting to think there might actually be a strong correlation between how people look and act. What I don't know for sure is which is first. Some is obviously nature bur nurture is obviously a thing, too.
    • MichaelCollins 4y ago
      > I am starting to think there might actually be a strong correlation between how people look and act. I think the way people act influences the way their appearance is perceived in very subtle ways. A sketchy liar could have exactly the same bone structure as an honest man, but the sketchy liar will be perceived as less honest due to almost imperceptible differences in body language, the way they hold their facial muscles, etc. The result of these subtle differences can be detected with a vague sensation of "this guy is sketchy, he's probably about to lie to me." Also I think there is an element of truth to the old wive's tail of "your face is going to get stuck like that". People who frequently have malicious facial expressions in private will find themselves having malicious facial expressions when they don't mean to, when interacting with the people they intend to deceive. Maybe out of pure habit, or maybe because those muscles are just getting more exercise. Somebody who often has a lopsided smirk will develop muscles on one side of their face more than the other, and eventually they can't help but to smirk by default.
      • SamPatt 4y ago
• jleyank 4y ago
  Get used to eye contact cuz if/when you lose hearing you’ll be lip reading and trying to pick up cues re when to speak and what was said. Unless you have two hearing aids for stereo, where people look in a group is an excellent cue who is talking. And talking over people is an “I’m an asshole” cue that one should try to avoid.
  • gertlex 4y ago
    (I wear hearing aids and always have; not correcting you; just typing/sharing y own observations to see if I learn anything) I do plenty of staring at mouths (subconciously), and eye contact has always been a different thing than eyes-watching-lips, especially one-on-one. I'm not sure how it is for the normal-hearing, but prolonged eye contact has never been something I've done much of, my eyes usually regularly drop to the lips (or for those who I can hear really well, I won't be looking at their faces at all ;) ) When following in a group setting, I do watch eyes, but have that strong response of looking away if the speaker happens to make eye contact. And yeah, participating/interjecting in conversations is a weakness. The whole masking thing though... has been new and rough. If I have to converse 1-on-1 with the other wearing masks, there's no lips to watch, but the eyes are still there! I haven't dug into it too much (spooky? eyes are just distracting non-lipreading motions?), but my brain does massively better at figuring out what is said if I look to the side (typically at the floor/wall). Whether or not I have any autism spectrum traits or not, I'm sure a higher percent of people wonder about such now, than they did a few years ago. Masks + group of friends: I pretty much auto give up and idle on my phone; the culture of "don't question others about wearing masks" is too strong to feel socially comfortable with asking for masks to be removed. That's definitely excuse-making on my part, but my friends also are pretty good about removing masks when we're seated for dinner, etc. so I haven't been forced to ask for mask removal anyways...
    • jleyank 4y ago
      I wear them also with severe loss. The eyes comment came from meetings before I got them. Many people “grow” into needing aids and go through a struggling period where many voices are just gone. Masks suck for deaf folks, but I can get a little from eye crinkles. And saying what a lot. And avoiding crowded, noisy restaurants as I’m screwed with or without aids.
• yolo3000 4y ago
  The moment I make real eye contact I hope for the conversation to end quickly, because I can't disconnect the eye contact. I try to offset my gaze a bit, but for some reason my mind will try to make eye contact again, it's hard to concentrate and keep my eyes from making contact again. And when I make eye contact, it's like I see straight inside the person. Now that I think of it, this differs from person to person, it feels more weird when the other person is not someone close to me.
  • stevezsa8 4y ago
    I'm curious how you feel when listening compared to talking. I mean, is it more comfortable to concentrate with eye contact when you're listening to the other person? In other words when not trying to concentrate on forming a response to a question. I appreciate this won't work in every situation. But I personally find it easier to make eye contact when I'm listening to a friend tell me about their weekend or something.
    • yolo3000 4y ago
      I think for me there's 2 levels of eye contact. When you look at the eyes, and then when your pupils look straight into the other pupils. When I look straight into the pupils, it's like I put a fix on them and I get some sort of tunnel vision. Now that I think of it maybe my brain thinks of the reverse, that I'm somehow put on the spot by the other person, and I become anxious. Doesn't happen all the time, but when it happens, it becomes weird.
• zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
  I can focus better on what someone is saying if I'm not looking at them. Sometimes it's detrimental because others think I'm not paying attention. If I do look at a person's face while speaking with them, it is most beneficial to me to look at their mouth and read their lips while I listen. But then I'm like aware that I'm staring at this person's mouth so then I'll fake eye contact by looking them in the eyes but blurring my vision slightly. I'm not sure if that looks weird, but I think people don't notice. Nobody has ever said anything about my eyes looking odd. Or maybe they just think that's how they are.
  • animal531 4y ago
    What helps for this is to not look at their eyes, instead just look at the bridge of their nose between their eyes. For them it'll be as if you are looking straight into either eye.
  • penguin_booze 4y ago
    Same here. I assume a thinking pose and look at a corner in the room - that should signal that at least my attention hasn't strayed elsewhere more significant. My another strategy is to make occasional eye contact while blurring my vision. To them, I'm making eye contact, whereas for me, it's not that different when I'm looking at the corner.
    • erik_landerholm 4y ago
      Yeah I’m really good at those hidden 3d pictures. I can split the focus of my eyes super quickly and will do that sometimes while looking at someone if I feel like I’ve not looked at their eyes for too long. On zoom if I’m really listening I’m literally turning my head to the side and possibly closing my eyes.
      • cecilpl2 4y ago
        I can also make my eyes go parallel, and it's fun to be able to stare into both of someone's eyes at the same time :)
• p0nce 4y ago
  For me eye contact is basically aggression. I don't like doing it, and I don't like people thinking it means some kind of authenticity.
  • Waterluvian 4y ago
    I suspect eye contact is rather engrained in our species. It’s a very important part of communication, or so I’ve been told and experienced. I’ve definitely seen people disadvantaged by being unwilling or unable to look others in the eyes while having a conversation. But I’m not sure we should go as far as discouraging it because some people feel aggressed by being looked at. At the same time we can all endeavour to be more understanding that people not being able to make eye contact doesn’t necessarily mean much.
    • lamontcg 4y ago
      > I suspect eye contact is rather engrained in our species. It’s a very important part of communication, or so I’ve been told and experienced. Except as has been pointed out several times in this thread, the two most populous countries in the world consider it rude, which means your opinion is probably a minority opinion worldwide and not really so ingrained.
• BaudouinVH 4y ago
  (unless you are somewhere on the autism spectrum)
  • Noumenon72 4y ago
    I thought I was okay with eye contact because I look at people's eyes when they're talking instead of their shoes. I had no idea it was supposed to be a two-way communication of whose turn it's going to be!
• mradek 4y ago
  I am terrible at eye contact. First of all my eyeball FOV is set to like 60 and I wear glasses so when people are too close it’s hard for me to make eye contact because I just see their whole face lol. Also when I talk to some people who make strong eye contact I feel like they’re looking into my soul and it’s uncomfortable. I know it’s a me problem, just my experience tho lol.
• 121110987654321 4y ago
  As we age, maybe prior experience coalescing as 'wisdom' begins to play a more active role in our day to day decision making? That wisdom manifesting in more of a consciously aware way... Whereas maybe we once used to (passively or actively) make important judgement calls about a persons broader character based on certain physical attributes such as the uniqueness of their face, our wisdom says it just doesn't matter in quite the way we maybe once thought. One of the biggest lessons I learned early on when starting in the tech industry is absolutely never assume anything about anyone based on appearance. We've all fallen for that before! This is industry dependent because for example, if we're talking about the fashion industry then things are different. I digress... Regarding the body language and signaling by extension of appearance in American culture it can be used as an measure of certain aspects of someone's personality - not necessarily bad in the lack-of-eye-contact scenario, but we know it's a lot harder for someone to maintain the impression of engagement throughout inattentive interactions. Eye to eye is engaging, anything else is less. However, since it's about establishing trust and respect when it comes to a new business relationship, at least in America, there's a sense of 'can I trust this person', that's rooted in fear. So if we're talking about something important presumably with potentially painful financial or reputational ramifications - then you tell me if it matters that this person is unwilling, or unable to look into your eyes? Does the inability to match ones gaze lead itself to more or less inherent trustworthiness?
• faeriechangling 4y ago
  >Mean engagement was quantified as an average of the two continuous self-reported engagement ratings that each conversation partner made while rewatching a video of their conversation The tail is wagging the dog in this study. The study fundamentally fails to validly measure what it claims to measure. It's measuring the perception of attention, not attention itself. I only look at their face to signal that I'm paying attention to them, but if I'm looking at their face, I'm probably paying attention to looking at their face not at what they're actually saying. It's a very conscious move on my part to sacrifice my actual ability to pay attention to give off the perception of paying attention. If I want to both pay attention and look like I'm paying attention, I write notes. >186 subjects comprising 93 dyads (mean age: 19.38 y; 120 females) participated. Subjects were recruited from Dartmouth College Also a rather WEIRD sample which is actually a major issue in a study like this since it's measuring something rooted in cultural perceptions.
  • gundmc 4y ago
    This is a huge problem for many psychology studies more broadly. Undergrads are a ready and plentiful source of test subjects for research professors, but they come with a huge bag of self-selected characteristics that may not extrapolate to the broader population at all.
  • BeetleB 4y ago
    For folks who are not aware of the WEIRD acronym: > In 2008, Arnett pointed out that most articles in American Psychological Association journals were about U.S. populations when U.S. citizens are only 5% of the world's population. He complained that psychologists had no basis for assuming psychological processes to be universal and generalizing research findings to the rest of the global population.[279] In 2010, Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan reported a bias in conducting psychology studies with participants from "WEIRD" ("Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic") societies.[280][281] Henrich et al. found that "96% of psychological samples come from countries with only 12% of the world’s population" (p. 63). The article gave examples of results that differ significantly between people from WEIRD and tribal cultures, including the Müller-Lyer illusion. Arnett (2008), Altmaier and Hall (2008) and Morgan-Consoli et al. (2018) view the Western bias in research and theory as a serious problem considering psychologists are increasingly applying psychological principles developed in WEIRD regions in their research, clinical work, and consultation with populations around the world.[279][282][283] In 2018, Rad, Martingano, and Ginges showed that nearly a decade after Henrich et al.'s paper, over 80% of the samples used in studies published in the journal Psychological Science employed WEIRD samples. Moreover, their analysis showed that several studies did not fully disclose the origin of their samples; the authors offered a set of recommendations to editors and reviewers to reduce WEIRD bias.[284] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology#WEIRD_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology#WEIRD_bias
• nottorp 4y ago
  Maybe for normies. Could the sales type extroverts stop setting standards for everyone please? I never bother with eye contact. Whats important is what they’re saying.
  • khazhoux 4y ago
    The majority of comments here are from people (including myself) who hate eye contact.
    • nottorp 4y ago
      Yeah because we feel threatened.
• huqedato 4y ago
  I am one of those that can communicate effectively but cannot make eye contact with the other party. Simply can't. I never could. If I try to look him/her/them in the eyes I am loosing control, can't find my words, losing the train of thought and focus. This inability brought me a lot of disadvantages in time. For example, I've been underperforming at all interviews and oral exams.
• marginalien 4y ago
  It is for that reason why online meeting tools like Zoom, MS Teams, etc., should provide an option to hide your own video from yourself – I believe one’s own video is a massive source of distraction from concentrating on other persons in a conversation.
  • stevage 4y ago
    Most of them do? Certainly Zoom does.
    • khazhoux 4y ago
      Teams does not. So annoying... I can't stop from looking at myself talking.
      • marginalien 4y ago
        Same here. From time to time I observe where other meeting participants look at and I feel like this is very, very common (you can tell by the specific corner a person is looking at in some of these applications)
        • pests 4y ago
          In the apps that allow it I just move myself under the camera on my laptop so it looks like I'm just looking into the camera. Or I hope that's what people think!
    • quickthrower2 4y ago
      Slack has it now.
• amelius 4y ago
  Is there a maximum duration of eye contact (after which things get awkward)?
  • nickjj 4y ago
    I don't think so. In person I tend to look into people's eyes for mostly the whole conversation (easily 95% of the time) when I'm either listening or talking minus natural breaks to react to a noise or event that warrants looking away. I've had really long chats like this where I never got a hint someone was weirded out. Honestly I couldn't even imagine talking with someone without looking at them. In my mind that would be one of the rudest things you could do, especially if they're the one talking. I also wonder if this comes down to how you feel about yourself. I think when you're looking at someone's eyes you know what they're looking at it. For me, knowing where they're looking makes me more relaxed. I'm in the US and don't recall ever being brought up a certain way, it just "feels" right to do the above.
• photochemsyn 4y ago
  Even for people who think eye contact is important during a conversation - please, you don't want to do this while driving a vehicle. Keep your eyes on the road and have a normal conversation without looking at the other person. It's a major safety hazard, as bad as texting and driving.
  • quickthrower2 4y ago
    I hate it when TV shows, reality or drama have people do this, especially in normal circumstances/ normal people (obviously a serial killer or other criminal, it is kind of weird if they were super concerned about road safety).
• gumby 4y ago
  I wonder how much this is affected by culture ("a lot" would be interesting and "not at all" would be very interesting). It feels like it's a low-level innate communication thing (e.g. dogs do this too when communicating with humans, while inter-dog eye contact has different semantics). I do notice that I look at the speaker in a zoom call, even when I have my own video off. I also notice in big calls where many people have their cameras off, it's common that a questioner or commenter will enable the camera before speaking, and then disable it again when their turn is over. (I searched for "culture" and "language" before posting)
• robbintt 4y ago
  They must not have checked many engineer types.
• bergenty 4y ago
  This does not resonate with me. I need to look off into infinity if I’m saying anything taxing and that’s hard to do if I’m focusing on someone’s eyes.
• lowbloodsugar 4y ago
  ... for neurotypical people and autistic "individuals who have less severe social symptoms".
• quickthrower2 4y ago
  If it is a technical subject I want to look away, so my imagination and draw the map of what we are talking about. If I am saying hello to someone on the street, and in more "social" and simple conversations, I will probably look at their eyes more.
• oska 4y ago
  In school I used to find that a lot of teachers talked to the class while looking at me for largish periods of time. I think it was because I kept eye-contact with the teacher a lot (or more than others in the class). Not that I was a 'goody two shoes' (quite the reverse) but I did remain attentive and focused on the teacher's face (and eyes).