Eye Contact and Social Interaction

The article discusses the importance of eye contact in social interaction and the psychophysiological responses it elicits in the observer. The authors note that while some studies suggest that the sensory input of eye contact is responsible for these effects, others emphasize the psychological experience of being seen by another person. The article presents a study that investigates whether the physical presence of the other person is necessary for these psychophysiological responses. The study measures participants' autonomic arousal and facial muscle responses to direct and averted gaze in three conditions: live interaction, bidirectional video call, and watching a video. The results suggest that the experience of being seen is essential for autonomic arousal responses, but not for facial responses, and that the physical presence or proximity of the other person is not necessary for these effects. The study also measures participants' subjective feelings of arousal and valence.analysis.

2.4.2 | Electromyography (EMG)

EMG activity was measured with two electrodes (Ag/AgCl) attached to the skin above the left eyebrow and the left zygomaticus major muscle. The EMG data were recorded using the same equipment and software as the skin conductance data. The data were filtered with a 60 Hz notch filter and a 10 Hz high-pass filter. The EMG data were rectified and smoothed with a moving average filter with a window size of 100 ms. EMG responses were calculated as the maximum amplitude within a time window of 0.9–6.5 s after stimulus onset. Trials with excessive artifacts were rejected (1.1% of all trials). For each participant and for each condition, mean EMG magnitude was calculated by averaging the data from all accepted trials including those with zero responses (mean number of trials in each condition: M live = 15.1, M videocall = 14.8, M video = 15.1). The mean EMG magnitudes were used in the statistical analysis.

2.5 | Statistical analysis

The skin conductance and electromyography data were analyzed using a 2 × 3 repeated measures ANOVA with the factors of gaze direction (direct vs. averted) and condition (live, video call, video). The self-reported valence and arousal ratings were analyzed using separate 2 × 3 repeated measures ANOVAs with the factors of gaze direction and condition. Significant main effects and interactions were further analyzed with post hoc tests using Bonferroni correction. The significance level was set at p < .05. All statistical analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 25.in live interaction and video call conditions, but not in the mere video condition. This suggests that being seen by another person in real-time elicits a stronger autonomic arousal response than simply watching a video of someone. However, the magnitude of the effect was similar in the live and video call conditions, indicating that the physical presence of the other person may not be crucial for this response.

In terms of facial reactions, direct gaze elicited more positive affective facial reactions in all three conditions, as indicated by greater zygomatic and smaller corrugator EMG activity. This suggests that direct gaze is associated with positive affective responses regardless of the mode of interaction. However, there was no significant interaction between condition and gaze direction, indicating that the mode of interaction did not significantly modulate these facial reactions.

Overall, these findings suggest that the physical presence of another person may not be necessary for the autonomic arousal response to direct gaze, but it may be important for modulating facial reactions. Future research could further investigate the role of physical presence in the psycho-physiological responses to eye contact.tact can also be present in video call interactions, highlighting the potential for meaningful social connections to be formed even in virtual contexts. These findings have important implications for social cognition research and the use of videoconferencing technologies in various settings. Further research is needed to fully understand the emotional effects of different forms of social interaction and the underlying mechanisms involved.