Tell-tale eyes: Children's attribution of gaze aversion as a lying cue.

Abstract

This study examined whether the well-documented adult tendency to perceive gaze aversion as a lying cue is also evident in children. In Experiment 1, 6-year-olds, 9-year-olds, and adults were shown video vignettes of speakers who either maintained or avoided eye contact while answering an interviewer's questions. Participants evaluated whether the speaker was telling the truth or lying on each trial. The results revealed that at both ages, children were more likely to attribute lying to speakers in the gaze aversion condition; however, the effect was significantly greater among 9-year-olds. Significant gender differences were also uncovered, with girls demonstrating strongest sensitivity to the gaze cue. Experiment 2 replicated the gender effect in 6-year-olds but found that when the speakers' verbal responses were removed, boys' use of the gaze cue increased and the gender difference disappeared. These findings indicate that at 6 years old, children interpret interpersonal gaze behavior as a socially informative cue. Furthermore, the growing appreciation of the stereotypic gaze behavior associated with lying and the reputed female advantage in gaze sensitivity may reflect differential processing of multimodal communication.

The development of fine-grained sensitivity to eye contact after 6years of age

“…In the current experiment, 6-year-olds perceived eye contact over a wider horizontal range of positions than did older children and adults and, thus, may be less sensitive to the social signals associated with averted gaze. This, along with less knowledge of the display rules associated with eye gaze (see McCarthy & Lee, 2009), could be why 6-year-olds are less likely than 9-year-olds and adults to attribute deception to a person displaying averted gaze (Einav & Hood, 2008). Children's sensitivity to the other social signals associated with averted gaze (e.g., attention toward an event in the environment, avoidance) has not been reported.…”

“…Both 9-year-olds and adults attribute deception to a person who fails to make eye contact (Einav & Hood, 2008;see also McCarthy & Lee, 2009). Like adults, 8-to 15-yearolds are faster at detecting faces presented with direct gaze than at detecting faces presented with averted gaze , and 6-to 11-year-olds are better at remembering facial identity when gaze is direct (Smith et al, 2006).…”

Knowing when to doubt: Developing a critical stance when learning from others.

“…Although 4-year-olds could keep in mind who had made greater numerical errors in the past when evaluating new claims, it was not until age 6 or 7 that children succeeded at applying an understanding of less measurable errors (e.g., whether it is worse to call a tiger a mouse or a lion). Furthermore, only 7-year-olds used claims made by the informant who had previously made smaller errors to influence their own answers (Einav & Robinson, 2010). In other words, by age 4, children can reflect on the degree of someone’s errors, but there are still developmental improvements in sensitivity to the degree of errors in different domains and in recognizing that some errors can be informative.…”

Effects of social gaze on visual-spatial imagination

“…Indeed, if eye-closure or gaze aversion benefit cognition by individuals who suffer acutely from social anxiety or shyness, it may be advantageous to encourage these individuals to adopt these techniques in relevant settings (e.g., in the classroom). However, it is also important to note that negative social judgments frequently are made of individuals who avert their gaze or turn away from an interlocutor (e.g., Larsen and Shackelford, 1996), especially as people who avert their gaze are often perceived as deceptive by others (for discussion see, e.g., Vrij and Semin, 1996; Mann et al, 2002; Einav and Hood, 2008). Finally, as noted already, the present studies used only adult participants.…”