Capturing eye-gaze synchrony in a triadic interaction: A proof-of-concept study

Area of Science:

• Social Psychology
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Eye-gaze synchrony, the coordination of eye movements, is vital in social interactions.
• Existing research primarily focuses on dyadic (two-person) settings.
• Methodological challenges hinder the study of gaze synchrony in multi-person interactions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the feasibility of capturing eye-gaze synchrony in triadic (three-person) interactions.
• To propose and validate a reproducible workflow for mobile eye tracking in group settings.
• To compare different operationalizations of eye-gaze synchrony in a triadic conversation.

Main Methods:

• Utilized Tobii Pro Glasses 3 mobile eye trackers for three participants in a 7-minute conversation.
• Synchronized independent recordings using a router-based setup.
• Re-expressed gaze data in a common 2D reference frame and compared event-based and index-based synchrony approaches.

Main Results:

• Successfully captured and analyzed eye-gaze synchrony in a triadic interaction.
• Different operationalizations (event-based vs. index-based) revealed distinct patterns of gaze coordination.
• Demonstrated the technical feasibility of using mobile eye tracking for group gaze analysis.

Conclusions:

• Mobile eye tracking is technically feasible for studying gaze coordination in triadic settings.
• The choice of synchrony operationalization significantly impacts the observed patterns of gaze coordination.
• The proposed workflow offers a foundation for future research on group eye-gaze synchrony.