There is more to eye contact than meets the eye
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Updated: Apr 20, 2026

Gaze in Action: Head-mounted Eye Tracking of Children's Dynamic Visual Attention During Naturalistic Behavior
Published on: November 14, 2018
Aki Myllyneva1, Jari K Hietanen1
1Human Information Processing Laboratory, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, FIN-33014 University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland.
Abstract:
Recent studies have shown enhanced brain and autonomic responses to seeing a face with a direct gaze. Interestingly, greater responses to eye contact vs. averted gaze have been observed when showing "live" faces as stimuli but not when showing pictures of faces on a computer screen. In this study, we provide unequivocal evidence that the differential responses observed in the "live" condition are dependent on the observer's mental attributions. Results from two experiments showed that eye contact resulted in greater autonomic and brain responses compared to averted gaze if a participant believed that the stimulus person sitting on the other side of an electronic shutter was able to see him or her through the shutter. Gaze direction had no effects if participants believed that the transparency from their side was blocked. The results suggest that mental attributions exert a powerful modulation on the processing of socially relevant sensory information.
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