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Eye Contact Will Influence Man-Machine Interaction
atari_kid writes "ScienceDaily is running a story about a researcher findings on the importance of eye contact in group communications. More importantly, the findings show how the amount of eye contact one receives in a group will effect the number of turns one can take in a discussion. What is interesting about the study his how it will effect the design of the future communication devices, like for example: 'Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) which support communication between people and machines.' The research findings will be also used to facilitate user interactions with devices like PDA's and cell phones. I wonder if the findings could explain why the 'beautiful people' have such influence on the mass media."
Does this mean Xeyes will actually have a useful function?
It's the future of computing!
So this means that if I wanted to become really dominant in a conversation, I could bribe a couple of the participators to look at me once in a while, and rarely at my "opponent"? Hmmm suddenly I realize that a sales team should never ever consist of under ten people...
I am a rehabilitation/social worker for the blind and visually impaired... a great percentage of the world population has eye conditions, in which eye contact is difficult as a result of poor focus, strabismus, to name a few. When communicating with someone who is visually impaired, many other key stimulus must be realized. A blind or visually impaired person may show body language suggesting their desire to speak, or simply wait-out, at which point, people usually listen to the quiet group member. I think that using eye-contact as a variable in online group meetings is an interesting idea, but many other considerations must be met.
A University of Chicago study in 1994 found that the quality of a woman's interaction with a group of males can be measured by the amount of eye contact with her breasts.
Phallic Symbols in LOTR
one study done on virtual teams that spent a long time interacting via the internet, and then brought together for a brief time period to interact spent most of their time just introducing themselves to each other.
apparently, interaction with each other is more than just talking to one another,(mail qualifies for that, or say video attachments on mails)
co(g)ito, ergo sum : I get screwed at school, so i must be alive.
Anyone who's read "how to win friends and infulence people" know you score points by paying attention - making eye contact is the first step in that.
I can't say it loud enough: DUH!!
I wonder if the findings could explain why the 'beautiful people' have such influence on the mass media."
:)
No, they have this influence because your hormones tell you that if you pay attention, you might be allowed to mate with the alpha male/female.
Sadly, they are wrong.
...ever see Blade Runner? Coming soon! Brand new Voight-Kampf machines to use your eyes to test your emotional responses.
Only in slashdot are posts of solidarity modded at -1 Redundant, while posts of antagonism are modded as -1 Flamebait.
News flash: Eye contact is important to communication. The more you look at someone, the better you'll communicate. Why did someone waste time and money analyzing this? A better idea: analyze vision processes in a human/comp. two way communication experiment to better design man/machine interfaces.
Eye Contact will influence Man-machine interaction...lol, that should be obvious to the meanest intelligence.
I don't know how CowboyNeal could even infer that from the article, but its wrong anyway! Beautiful people do not have any influence with the mass media. Famous people, on the other hand, might. I would not include Barbra Streisand, or Arnold Schwarzenegger in my list of beautiful people, but when they say something, the media listens. And the media listens, because, like it or not, the mass population wants to hear what they say. If people didn't want to know, the media would stop broadcasting it.
The notion, however, that human computer interaction becomes better by mimicking human to human interaction seems ridiculous. Computers are tools. I no more want to engage in social eye contact with a computer than I want to with my drill, my car, or my vacuum cleaner.
Eye contact is used to regulate attention in social situations--a precious commodity among humans. But when it comes to tools and appliances, I expect them to pay full attention to me all the time, but to respond only when spoken to. None of that involves eye contact.
I wonder about how cultural differences in eye contact would affect this kind of study. I can't imagine that in many parts of Asia, where eye contact is rude in many contexts, that the results would be the same.
Even though his method is much more effective than eye contact, it is rarely used today.
Seems like a recipe for keeping meetings productive. Make lots of eye contact with the people who are most likely to affect the meeting outcome you desire. For me, this is usually making the meeting end quickly.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
already obey my every whim when I interact with them. They are my virtual comunications slaves.
Why, I can literally * push their buttons* and they respond as I will, when I will them too.
Frankly I find the idea of having to make "eye contact" with an inanimate object kind of creepy.
I can just see it now, I've made "eye contact" with a sweet young thing, she turns out to be compliant, we handshake, interface and we're just about to get to the good parts involving "sockets" when she "makes eye contact" ( today's catch phrase for "look at") with me and says:
"Not in front of the phone. I can't do it with someone watching."
KFG
"They say you should make eye contact with a woman you're interested in. Well, there's a fine line between eye contact and the piercing stare of a psychopath."
Eye contact is highly cultural: direct eye contact has different meanings to different people. In Europe and America it signifies attentiveness and interest, but elsewhere it can mean aggression and disrespect --
This kind of research is important in developing better computer interface, and human communication tools, but these tools need to adapt to many styles and codes of communication, as well.
VOS/Interreality project: www.interreality.org
Do people still make eye contact?
In some areas, eye contact is considered threatening. In others, it is considered a show of sincerity and honesty.
I come from an area where eye contact is good, and unfortunately I think I am living in an area where it makes people uncomfortable. In turn, it is uncomfortable for me when I make people uncomfortable.
It would be interesting to see a study on personality types versus eye contact and geographic area vs. eye contact and how to deal with differences in perceptions of eye contact. This would help me feel more comfortable in daily life and from what I gather would help a lot of others, too.
Any interesting sources anyone can point to?
Hehehehe. This reminds me of a little experiment done to our social psych professor. It demonstrates the power of attention, but also shaping (gradual conditioning) in a rather insidious form.
The class had been studying shaping -- where you don't condition for an end behaviour but for an intermediate, easier one. Then when you have that, you shape to the next behaviour in a chain, repeating as necessary. That way, you can condition complicated behaviours that would occur too infrequently by chance to reward the pattern.
The idea was to pay our prof more or less attention the more or less he did a specific behaviour, and we chose teaching from one side of the stage rather than the other (in this case, reinforcing stage left, our right). Was probably good that only about 20 people were in on it, otherwise it might have been too obvious. But when he'd wander to our left, we'd stare at our books, scratch our heads, frown, slouch, and never make eye contact. If he moved to our right, we'd sit up a little straighter, look at him, and basically show we were paying attention. Well, if you ever have a glance around a sizable class, you know there are seldom many people giving their complete attention anyway, unless the prof is riveting. It only took a few classes to have him spending most of his time to the right of the lectern. We kept this up for nearly a month, at which point he basically taught the class from a window sill on the right edge of the room. Most impressivly, he didn't know what was going on. Most likely he just felt "most comfortable" there. Hehehehehehe.
People love to slag psychology but everyone acknowledges the importance of things like "eye contact." It's time we started giving these things some credit. Like the previous poster noting the power a "team of salespeople" could have, this can be powerful stuff.
Another interesting tidbit about Kruschev is the mistranslation of the phrase "We will bury you". (Another popular misconception is that he said this during the shoe-banging incident)
A more accurate translation would have been something like "we will be at your burial" with the more passive meaning that communism will outlast democracy, not the active meaning, suggested by 'bury', that they planned to kill us.
My source for this was my Russian professor in college but I just also found some colloborating evidence in this paper about the difficulties of translation.