Handheld cellular phones restrict head movements and range of visual regard

Numerous studies have reported the ability of mobile phones to distract users and thereby degrade performance of concurrent tasks. Less is known about whether the phone-holding posture can itself influence concurrent motor activities. Horizontal eye movements are often coordinated with head movements, particularly when the amplitude of the gaze shift is large. Holding a phone to one ear has been shown to restrict the range of spontaneously generated head movements. In order to determine whether the phone-holding posture also influences gaze, we recorded eye and head movements as volunteers looked about themselves spontaneously. Holding the phone to the ear narrowed the range of gaze, principally in subjects who exhibit a strong propensity to move the head with the eyes. We argue that visual exploration may be influenced by the balance between costs and benefits of turning the head, with the phone-holding posture increasing the costs. The effects on gaze would be seen most clearly in subjects who have a higher predilection for coupling eye and head movements. Conversely, this effect would be minimal if tested in tasks that rarely elicit head movements in the specific subjects being tested. The results emphasize the close coordination between eye and head movements, and have implications for the design of ergonomic studies comparing the effects of handheld vs. hands-free mobile phones on performance of specific tasks, such as driving.