Cultural differences in mutual gaze during face-to-face interactions: A dual head-mounted eye-tracking study

Cross-cultural psychologists have widely discussed “gaze avoidance” as a sociocultural norm to describe reduced mutual gaze in East Asians (EAs) compared Western Caucasians (WCs). Supportive evidence is primarily based on self-reports and video recordings of face-to-face interactions, but more objective techniques that can investigate the micro-dynamics are scarce. The current study used dual head-mounted eye-tracking EA WC dyads examine face looking during live social interactions. Both cultural groups showed when listening than speaking, an introductory task storytelling game. Crucially, WCs, spent significantly time engaging gaze, individual instances were longer EAs for Our findings challenge generalizable observation, highlight need consider contextual factors dynamically influence both within between cultures.