The Role of Eye‐contact in Inducing Conformity

Davey, A. G.; Taylor, Laurie

doi:10.1111/j.2044-8260.1968.tb00575.x

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Our second prediction, that the inclusion of eye contact would increase the level of conformity with the agents, was not confirmed. This result replicates the outcome of another non-IVR research (Davey and Taylor, 1968), in which the authors attribute it to the fact that eye contact is only effective when combined with other social cues such as posture changes, gestures, and facial expressions. On the contrary, we confirmed our hypothesis that the eye contact manipulation can affect the sense of Social Presence.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Social Conformity in Immersive Virtual Environments: The Impact of Agents’ Gaze Behavior

et al. 2020

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Immersive virtual reality (IVR) can induce an experience of "social presence" which can, in turn, increase social influence. Non-verbal behavior such as eye contact is an important component of human communication and, therefore, an important factor in creating social presence. This paper presents an experimental study that elaborates social influence through conformity with a group of virtual agents within an immersive virtual environment (IVE). Specifically, it investigates the impact of the agents' gaze behavior on social presence and influence. An experiment based on the Asch (1951) paradigm using two levels of agents' gaze behavior (Eye Contact condition vs. No-Eye Contact condition) was conducted. The results showed that participants conformed with the agents as they gave significantly more incorrect responses to the trials that the agents also gave an incorrect response, compared to those trials that the agents gave correct answers. However, no impact of the agents' gaze behavior on conformity was observed, even if the participants in the Eye Contact condition reported a higher sense of social presence. In addition, self-reported measures showed a number of social effects that occurred only in the eye contact condition, indicating that the agents' gaze behavior has an impact on participants' experience.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Social Conformity in Immersive Virtual Environments: The Impact of Agents’ Gaze Behavior

et al. 2020

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“…Unfortunately, Cook's summary hardly needs to be updated a quarter-century later. The expansion of research on gaze seems to have been virtually limited to the period Cook described (e.g., Argyle & Cook, 1976;Davey & Taylor, 1968;Duncan & Fiske, 1977;Ellsworth & Carlsmith, 1968;Ellsworth & Ludwig, 1972;Kendon, 1967;Kendon & Cook, 1969;Kleck & Nuessle, 1967;Knapp, Hart, Friedrich, & Shulman, 1973;Mobbs, 1968;Scherwitz & Helmriech, 1973) with the last major review in 1986 (Kleinke, 1986). By then, a bifurcation common to research on nonverbal communication was already obvious, dividing the research into two distinct approaches: (a) A minority of studies focused on the function of gaze in the dialogue itself, using microanalysis to examine the relationship of gaze to the immediately surrounding audible and visible behaviors (e.g., Goodwin, 1981); and (b) the majority of studies examined gaze in relation to other variables external to dialogue, for example, correlating the amount of gaze to interpersonal attitudes, emotions, or personality differences (e.g., Argyle & Cook, 1976) or studying the effects of staring at strangers in public (Ellsworth, Carlsmith, & Henson, 1972).…”

Section: Previous Research On Gaze In Dialoguementioning

confidence: 99%

Listener Responses as a Collaborative Process: The Role of Gaze

Bavelas

Coates

Johnson³

2002

Journal of Communication

434

162

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The authors examined precisely when and how listeners insert their responses into a speaker's narrative. A collaborative theory would predict a relationship between the speaker's acts and the listener's responses, and the authors proposed that speaker gaze coordinated this collaboration. The listener typically looks more at the speaker than the reverse, but at key points while speaking the speaker seeks a response by looking at the listener, creating a brief period of mutual gaze called here a gaze window. The listener was very likely to respond with "mhm," a nod, or other reaction during this period, after which the speaker quickly looked away and continued speaking. This model was tested with 9 dyads in which 1 person was telling a close-call story to the other. The results confirmed the model for each dyad, demonstrating both collaboration in dialogue at the microlevel and a high degree of integration and coordination of audible and visible acts, in this case, speech and gaze.While listening to someone tell a story, listeners regularly make brief appropriate responses (sometimes called "back channels," after Yngve, 1970). The goal of the research reported here was to understand the timing of these responses, that is, why listeners respond when they do. Is this a haphazard event, is it determined by characteristics of the listener, or is it related to actions of the speaker (and if so, how)? We have pursued these questions first through an inductive qualitative analysis, then by statistical tests of the hypotheses we had developed. The data were videotapes of unacquainted dyads in which one person told a close-call story to the other.

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