Eye gaze and arousal: Skin conductance responses to live and picture stimuli of another person's direct and averted gaze
RUUHIALA, HEIDI (2008)
2008
Psykologia - Psychology
Yhteiskuntatieteellinen tiedekunta - Faculty of Social Sciences
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2008-02-13
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:uta-1-17682
https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:uta-1-17682
Tiivistelmä
A direct gaze acts as a precursor to social interaction and has the power to elicit both behavioral approach and avoidance tendencies. It is also associated with changes in physiological arousal. Previous research has attained in part inconsistent results of the arousing effect of direct versus averted gaze. One factor contributing to these discrepancies has been the varying use of live and picture stimuli while investigating the effects of gaze direction on physiological arousal. The present study sought to address this by comparing physiological reactions to another person’s direct and averted gaze presented live or as pictures on a computer screen. Skin conductance responses from healthy adults were measured. The use of a liquid crystal (LC) shutter enabled the presentation of live stimuli in a highly controlled and accurate manner. In addition, subjective evaluations of the arousal and emotional valence experienced during different stimulus conditions were collected at the end of the experiment.
The results indicated greater skin conductance responses and, thus, higher arousal resulting from seeing a straight gaze as compared to seeing an averted gaze in a live condition. In addition, straight gaze in a live condition was associated with significantly lower self-reported pleasantness scores and significantly higher self-reported arousal scores as compared to those obtained for averted gaze. None of these effects were obtained using the picture stimuli presented on a computer screen. The results are consistent with previous findings of eye contact eliciting greater arousal than unreciprocated gaze with the use of live stimuli, as well as with studies that found no gaze effects with computerized stimuli. The possibility of the results deriving from a lack of a social context in the picture condition is discussed.
KEY WORDS: Eye contact, gaze direction, skin conductance responses, live stimulus
The results indicated greater skin conductance responses and, thus, higher arousal resulting from seeing a straight gaze as compared to seeing an averted gaze in a live condition. In addition, straight gaze in a live condition was associated with significantly lower self-reported pleasantness scores and significantly higher self-reported arousal scores as compared to those obtained for averted gaze. None of these effects were obtained using the picture stimuli presented on a computer screen. The results are consistent with previous findings of eye contact eliciting greater arousal than unreciprocated gaze with the use of live stimuli, as well as with studies that found no gaze effects with computerized stimuli. The possibility of the results deriving from a lack of a social context in the picture condition is discussed.
KEY WORDS: Eye contact, gaze direction, skin conductance responses, live stimulus