The perception of other people's gaze: From the cone of gaze to the projection of central vision.

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Gernot Horstmann
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 449497943

Perceiving the gaze of others reliably and validly is important for everyday tasks and professional activities. In particular, gaze is strongly coupled with action and cognition. Thus knowing where a person is looking at is useful in the understanding and prediction of his or her actions and thoughts. In face-to-face conversation, looking behavior aides natural language comprehension, and regulates turn-taking. On the socially negative side, gazing may also be a means of violence as in body shaming and harassment. In the context of new technologies, the perception of the gaze of a robot or an avatar becomes relevant, if, for example, an artificial museum guide addresses his or her explanations to an audience. Last but not least, video conferences in professional contexts and video phone calls in private interactions require the designing of eye contact. In the context of research of the perception of being looked at, the cone of gaze has received particular attention: a 3D volume of space, originating from the looker and extending with distance in a cone shaped fashion. As part of the theoretical foundation of this research project, the new concept of the projection of central vision is introduced that is hypothesized to be a component of the cone of gaze. The projection of central vision is not only relevant in the context of the perception of being looked at, but more generally applicable to any situation where the gaze of a person is perceived.The general objective of this project is to answer the questions: What is the cone of gaze, how is it exactly shaped, and how does this shape changes with distance? It is argued that the cone of gaze is commonly determined by (a) the projection of central vision, (b) the change of the retinal size of the looked at object with distance, (c) directional biases, (d) acuity limits and their change with distance, and (e) the task. The research project puts this notion to an empirical test. This entails testing and fleshing out the new concept of the projection of central vision through dedicated experiments, some of which do not use a social object of gaze (a face) and a socially related judgement (whether one feels looked at). In particular, measurement over a sufficient range of distances and with sufficient data points is required in order to determine the exact shapes and sizes of the cone of direct gaze and the projection of central vision. Both a basic and an applied perspective are assumed; the latter implies measurements for real (embodied) lookers, as well as avatars (photos, artificial faces, and artificial heads). With all measurements taken together, the ultimate aim is to gain a much more complete understanding of the phenomenon of the perception of being looked at, and of the perceived direction and width of gaze in general. While this project is basic research, the results will have direct consequences for application in society and technology.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants