The central Europe experiment: Looking at persons and looking at objects

Gaze at objects, another person, and background was measured for fifteen dyads which constituted five different experimental groups in which task and situational factors were varied. The findings were that background stimuli had an unreliable effect on gaze; a very simple object relevant to the subject's task attracted a great deal of gaze and greatly reduced gaze at the other person. This effect was even stronger with a complex relevant object, where visual attention was almost completely transferred from the other person to the object. There was evidence of forces to avoid too much gaze at the other person. These findings suggested the possibility of postulating some new function of gaze in addition to information-seeking, or the possibility of an explanation in terms of the approach-avoidance model of gaze (Argyle & Dean, 1965).The authors are grateful to the S.S.R.C. for financial support.