Authors: Tönsing, D., Schiller, B., Vehlen, A., Spenthof, I., Domes, G., & Heinrichs, M. Journal: Scientific Reports
Eye contact is an integral part of our daily face-to-face interactions. For socially anxious individuals, however, the fear of scrutiny and negative evaluation can lead to gaze anxiety – perceiving eye contact as a source of discomfort. Examining the behavioral consequences of gaze anxiety, researchers have come to conflicting results, some suggesting it leads to altered behavior and gaze avoidance.
It is noteworthy that many previous studies have used lab-based “face-to-screen” paradigms, inviting the question of whether such findings, likely devoid of social pressure, are indeed transferable to “face-to-face” interactions.
Daniel Tönsing, Bastian Schiller and their colleagues from Albert-Ludwigs University of Freiburg and University of Trier in Germany employed a dual eye tracking setup to examine interactive gaze behavior in a face-to-face social situation, created in a largely controlled advanced lab setting which ensured robust eye tracking accuracy in quantifying the eye contact of both interlocutors.
The study divided participants into conversational pairs, combining individuals with medium, and high or low levels of previously self-reported gaze anxiety. They engaged in a semi structured interaction with a previously unknown individual, asking and answering questions from the “fast friends procedure”.
The dual eye tracking setup included two Tobii X3-120 eye trackers mounted on the table in front of each conversation partner to capture their individual eye movements, and two cameras installed above each participant’s head, to record what they were seeing. The setup is illustrated and described in Figure 1 in the paper, repeated here for illustration purposes (for a detailed description of the setup, visit the original text). For the quantitative data analysis, the authors considered the total dwell time on the partner´s eyes and the mutual eye gaze between the two interlocutors.
The results confront the self-reported gaze anxiety levels with the actual gaze behavior in a dyadic communication setup. The measured effect of gaze anxiety on gaze behavior is smaller than expected from self-reports. No differences were found in looking into the interlocutor´s eyes between individuals with low or high gaze anxiety, even when they engaged in mutual gaze with the conversation partner. In addition, subjective ratings of the interaction upon its completion were similarly positive, leaving no evidence of it influencing the quality of the social interaction.
The contrast between subjective and objective measures of gaze behavior suggests that individuals with social anxiety are indeed able to compensate for it behaviorally and show norm-conforming eye contact. The authors argue that treatment of individuals with social anxiety, which encourages engaging in increased eye contact, may be inadequate, while focusing on cognitive distortions regarding performance in social situations may prove more effective. Moreo- ver, the authors suggest that engaging individuals with social anxiety in such an exercise equipped with eye tracking, allowing for quantifiable feedback on how their social behavior is (un)affected by their anxiety, may help overcome the fear of social situations.
