Contact Is in the Eye of the Beholder: The Eye Contact Illusion

Authors: Shane L. Rogers*, Oliver Guidetti, Craig P. Speelman, Melissa Longmuir
Psychology Department, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia

Ruben Phillips
Medical and Health Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia

*Corresponding Author: Shane L. Rogers, Psychology Department, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia. Email: shane.rogers@ecu.edu.au

Received: April 01, 2018; Accepted: January 09, 2019; Article first published online: February 4, 2019

Abstract:
In a simple experiment, we demonstrate that you don’t need to mindfully look at the eyes of your audience to be perceived as making eye contact during face-to-face conversation. Simply gazing somewhere around the face/head area will suffice. Or to borrow a term from Mareschal and colleagues, direct gaze will suffice. For those readers who experience anxiety when gazing specifically at another person’s eyes, or when being gazed at, we expect this is welcome news.
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