Timing of gazes in child dialogues: a time-course analysis of requests and back channelling in referential communication

Influence of autistic traits and communication role on eye contact behavior during face-to-face interaction

Eye contact is a central component in face-to-face interactions. It is important in structuring communicative exchanges and offers critical insights into others' interests and intentions. To better understand eye contact in face-to-face interactions, we applied a novel, non-intrusive deep-learning-based dual-camera system and investigated associations between eye contact and autistic traits as well as self-reported eye contact discomfort during a referential communication task, where participants and the experimenter had to guess, in turn, a word known by the other individual. Corroborating previous research, we found that participants' eye gaze and mutual eye contact were inversely related to autistic traits. In addition, our findings revealed different behaviors depending on the role in the dyad: listening and guessing were associated with increased eye contact compared with describing words. In the listening and guessing condition, only a subgroup who reported eye contact discomfort had a lower amount of eye gaze and eye contact. When describing words, higher autistic traits were associated with reduced eye gaze and eye contact. Our data indicate that eye contact is inversely associated with autistic traits when describing words, and that eye gaze is modulated by the communicative role in a conversation.

Comparing Frequency of Listener Responses Between Adolescents with and Without ASD During Conversation

In conversation, the listener plays an active role in conversation success, specifically by providing listener feedback which signals comprehension and interest. Previous work has shown that frequency of feedback positively correlates with conversation success. Because individuals with ASD are known to struggle with various conversational skills, e.g., turn-taking and commenting, this study examines their use of listener feedback by comparing the frequency of feedback produced by 20 adolescents with ASD and 23 neurotypical (NT) adolescents. We coded verbal and nonverbal listener feedback during the time when participants were listening in a semi-structured interview with a research assistant. Results show that ASD participants produced significantly fewer instances of listener feedback than NT adolescents, which likely contributes to difficulties with social interactions.

The Role of Eye Gaze During Natural Social Interactions in Typical and Autistic People

Social interactions involve complex exchanges of a variety of social signals, such as gaze, facial expressions, speech and gestures. Focusing on the dual function of eye gaze, this review explores how the presence of an audience, communicative purpose and temporal dynamics of gaze allow interacting partners to achieve successful communication. First, we focus on how being watched modulates social cognition and behavior. We then show that the study of interpersonal gaze processing, particularly gaze temporal dynamics, can provide valuable understanding of social behavior in real interactions. We propose that the Interpersonal Gaze Processing model, which combines both sensing and signaling functions of eye gaze, provides a framework to make sense of gaze patterns in live interactions. Finally, we discuss how autistic individuals process the belief in being watched and interpersonal dynamics of gaze, and suggest that systematic manipulation of factors modulating gaze signaling can reveal which aspects of social eye gaze are challenging in autism.

Live interaction distinctively shapes social gaze dynamics in rhesus macaques

The dynamic interaction of gaze between individuals is a hallmark of social cognition. However, very few studies have examined social gaze dynamics after mutual eye contact during real-time interactions. We used a highly quantifiable paradigm to assess social gaze dynamics between pairs of monkeys and modeled these dynamics using an exponential decay function to investigate sustained attention after mutual eye contact. When monkeys were interacting with real partners compared with static images and movies of the same monkeys, we found a significant increase in the proportion of fixations to the eyes and a smaller dispersion of fixations around the eyes, indicating enhanced focal attention to the eye region. Notably, dominance and familiarity between the interacting pairs induced separable components of gaze dynamics that were unique to live interactions. Gaze dynamics of dominant monkeys after mutual eye contact were associated with a greater number of fixations to the eyes, whereas those of familiar pairs were associated with a faster rate of decrease in this eye-directed attention. Our findings endorse the notion that certain key aspects of social cognition are only captured during interactive social contexts and dependent on the elapsed time relative to socially meaningful events.

Speaking and Listening with the Eyes: Gaze Signaling during Dyadic Interactions

Cognitive scientists have long been interested in the role that eye gaze plays in social interactions. Previous research suggests that gaze acts as a signaling mechanism and can be used to control turn-taking behaviour. However, early research on this topic employed methods of analysis that aggregated gaze information across an entire trial (or trials), which masks any temporal dynamics that may exist in social interactions. More recently, attempts have been made to understand the temporal characteristics of social gaze but little research has been conducted in a natural setting with two interacting participants. The present study combines a temporally sensitive analysis technique with modern eye tracking technology to 1) validate the overall results from earlier aggregated analyses and 2) provide insight into the specific moment-to-moment temporal characteristics of turn-taking behaviour in a natural setting. Dyads played two social guessing games (20 Questions and Heads Up) while their eyes were tracked. Our general results are in line with past aggregated data, and using cross-correlational analysis on the specific gaze and speech signals of both participants we found that 1) speakers end their turn with direct gaze at the listener and 2) the listener in turn begins to speak with averted gaze. Convergent with theoretical models of social interaction, our data suggest that eye gaze can be used to signal both the end and the beginning of a speaking turn during a social interaction. The present study offers insight into the temporal dynamics of live dyadic interactions and also provides a new method of analysis for eye gaze data when temporal relationships are of interest.

Working memory and referential communication-multimodal aspects of interaction between children with sensorineural hearing impairment and normal hearing peers

Whereas the language development of children with sensorineural hearing impairment (SNHI) has repeatedly been shown to differ from that of peers with normal hearing (NH), few studies have used an experimental approach to investigate the consequences on everyday communicative interaction. This mini review gives an overview of a range of studies on children with SNHI and NH exploring intra- and inter-individual cognitive and linguistic systems during communication. Over the last decade, our research group has studied the conversational strategies of Swedish speaking children and adolescents with SNHI and NH using referential communication, an experimental analog to problem-solving in the classroom. We have established verbal and non-verbal control and validation mechanisms, related to working memory capacity and phonological short term memory. We present main findings and future directions relevant for the field of cognitive hearing science and for the clinical and school-based management of children and adolescents with SNHI.

Coordination of gaze and speech in communication between children with hearing impairment and normal-hearing peers

PURPOSE

To investigate gaze behavior during communication between children with hearing impairment (HI) and normal-hearing (NH) peers.

METHOD

Ten HI-NH and 10 NH-NH dyads performed a referential communication task requiring description of faces. During task performance, eye movements and speech were tracked. Using verbal event (questions, statements, back channeling, and silence) as the predictor variable, group characteristics in gaze behavior were expressed with Kaplan-Meier survival functions (estimating time to gaze-to-partner) and odds ratios (comparing number of verbal events with and without gaze-to-partner). Analyses compared the listeners in each dyad (HI: n = 10, mean age = 12;6 years, mean better ear pure-tone average = 33.0 dB HL; NH: n = 10, mean age = 13;7 years).

RESULTS

Log-rank tests revealed significant group differences in survival distributions for all verbal events, reflecting a higher probability of gaze to the partner's face for participants with HI. Expressed as odds ratios (OR), participants with HI displayed greater odds for gaze-to-partner (ORs ranging between 1.2 and 2.1) during all verbal events.

CONCLUSIONS

The results show an increased probability for listeners with HI to gaze at the speaker's face in association with verbal events. Several explanations for the finding are possible, and implications for further research are discussed.