Gaze as a function of conversation and degree of love

The possibility that Rubin's findings of greater mutual gazing between strong than weak lovers and between strangers could be attributed to the occurrence of more conversation in strong love conditions was tested. Ss were selected from an undergraduate population. Ten strong love couples, determined through the use of Rubin's love scale, were compared to 10 pairs of unacquainted Ss for the amount of mutual eye contact, as well as conversation time and time spent in pure gazing without conversation. It was found that lovers did converse more with each other than with strangers. However, they also spent more time in pure gazing during periods of silence, lending credence to Rubin's results. The methodological implications of using videotape for eye contact studies were also discussed.