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Concept
Eye contact
Summary
Eye contact occurs when two people or animals look at each other's eyes at the same time. In people, eye contact is a form of nonverbal communication and can have a large influence on social behavior. Coined in the early to mid-1960s, the term came from the West to often define the act as a meaningful and important sign of confidence and respect. The customs, meaning, and significance of eye contact can vary greatly between societies, neurotypes, and religions.
The study of eye contact is sometimes known as oculesics.
Eye contact and facial expressions provide important social and emotional information. People, perhaps without consciously doing so, search other's eyes and faces for positive or negative mood signs. In some contexts, the meeting of eyes arouses strong emotions.
Eye contact provides some of the strongest emotions during a social conversation. This primarily is because it provides details on emotions and intentions. In a group, if eye contact is not inclusive of a certain individual, it can make that individual feel left out of the group; while on the other hand, prolonged eye contact can tell someone you are interested in what they have to say.
Eye contact is also an important element in flirting, where it may serve to establish and gauge the other's interest in some situations. Mutual eye contact that signals attraction initially begins as a brief glance and progresses into a repeated volleying of eye contact.
In the process of civil inattention, strangers in close proximity, such as a crowd, avoid eye contact in order to help maintain their privacy.
A 1985 study suggested that "3-month-old infants are comparatively insensitive to being the object of another's visual regard". A 1996 Canadian study with 3- to 6-month-old infants found that smiling in infants decreased when adult eye contact was removed. A recent British study in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience found that face recognition by infants was facilitated by direct gaze. Other recent research has confirmed that the direct gaze of adults influences the direct gaze of infants.
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