title: There is more to eye contact than meets the eye.
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.
authors.affiliation: Human Information Processing Laboratory, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, FIN-33014 University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland. Electronic address: aki.myllyneva@uta.fi.
authors.forename: Aki
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Myllyneva
authors.affiliation: Human Information Processing Laboratory, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, FIN-33014 University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland. Electronic address: jari.hietanen@uta.fi.
authors.forename: Jari K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Hietanen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005123:Eye; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology*; D005712:Galvanic Skin Response / Q000502:physiology*; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012938:Social Perception; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Eye contact; Gaze direction; Mental attributions; Psychophysiology