Varying Eye Contact Enhances Conversation

Article: Make and Break Eye Contact for Livelier Conversation
Source: Dartmouth College
Published: September 16, 2021
Article: Making Eye Contact Signals a New Turn in a Conversation
Source: Scientific American
Published: September 21, 2021

Rather than elicit synchrony, eye contact commences as synchrony peaks
and predicts its immediate and subsequent decline until eye contact breaks.

Eye contact can be immersive and powerful. However, a new study suggests that varying eye contact, repeatedly making and breaking eye contact, enhances the dynamics of a conversation. As graduate student and lead author of the study explains, “When two people are having a conversation, eye contact signals that shared attention is high—that they are in peak synchrony with one another. As eye contact persists, that synchrony then decreases.” In particular, she and her research advisor examined pupillary synchrony, when two speakers' pupils dilate in sync, during moments of shared attention. The principle investigator of the study further comments, “We make eye contact when we are already in sync, and, if anything, eye contact seems to then help break that synchrony. Eye contact may usefully disrupt synchrony momentarily in order to allow for a new thought or idea.” The study involved 93 pairs of students having 10-minute recorded conversations about whatever they wanted while wearing eye-tracking glasses. The participants were asked to watch the recordings and rate how engaged they were. The data showed that people make eye contact as pupillary synchrony is at its peak, immediately decreases, only to sync again once eye contact is broken. They also found that instances of eye contact correlated with moments with higher levels of engagement during a conversation. The findings highlight that conversation is a shared creative process, with the rise and fall in pupillary synchrony and eye contact allowing for both moments of shared attention and moments of independent novelty. Moving into and out of alignment enhances connection. The authors conclude that "[E]ye contact may be a key mechanism for enabling the coordination of shared and independent modes of thought, allowing conversation to both cohere and evolve."

My rating of this study: ⭐⭐

Wohltjen S and Wheatley T. "Eye contact marks the rise and fall of shared attention in conversation." PNAS.  118(37):e2106645118. 14 September 2021. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2106645118