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Eye Tracking to Research Nonverbal Turn Taking Signals

Eye Tracking to Research Nonverbal Turn Taking Signals Have you ever been in a conversation in which you can never get a word in because the other person constantly interrupts you or just keeps going on and on? It is aggravating because verbal communication is typically a cooperative social interaction based on the exchange of information in a turn-taking manner. Taking turns while conversing is something that usually comes naturally (unless you are the interrupting-type mentioned above). In fact, you are probably not aware that you give off and receive nonverbal signals during a spoken exchange of information that moderate the back and forth nature of a conversation between two or more people. Nonverbal feedback, like body posture, hand gestures, and eye contact for example, expresses extent of engagement, willingness to continue, or loss of interest in the conversation. An eye tracking study at the Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, investigated the role of eye gaze as a nonverbal signal to coordinate turn-taking in dialogue.

Previous studies on behavior during one-on-one conversations have found that a speaker passes control of the conversation by gazing at the other person, leaning back, or by dropping the pitch or volume of his voice. The eye tracking study conducted at the Doshisha University was a bit different in that it observed gaze behavior during conversation between three people and during free flowing dialogue for more natural behavior patterns than task-related dialogue. For each trial, one person was monitored by an eye tracker and the other two conversation partners’ mannerisms were recorded by video cameras. Over a period of ten minutes, the actions, gaze, head, and face movements of the participants were analyzed to investigate the behavioral signals that indicate a speaker’s intention to prepare to speak, continue speaking, or yield their turn to someone else.

What they found was that head movement was a more frequently used signal, particularly during a multi-party exchange. To signal the desire to speak, a person would turn his whole head toward the speaker; to reject or avoid a turn, a person would look at the third person in the group. In most cases, gaze would be used as an initial signal of who could be the next speaker, but head movement played a bigger role in turn management because a stronger, more visibly expressed turn signal is necessary to focus attention during a multi-party conversation. Nonverbal turn-taking signals help make the interaction and exchange smooth; however, sometimes the subtle, nonverbal clues don’t register with the other person and you may just need tell them to zip-it and let you talk!

On Eye-gaze and Turn-taking

Eye Tracking to Research Nonverbal Turn Taking Signals

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