In human communication, mutual attentiveness between individuals is essential for social interaction. The most significant and reliable indicator of mutual attentiveness is gaze. Despite the availability of diverse exorbitant eye-tracking devices, all claim highly accurate gaze positioning, which exceeds the necessity for average researches and applications. We propose an alternative model for mutual gaze convergence detection using economical video capturing devices and straightforward techniques that can investigate natural gaze behaviors in human-human interaction. We conducted a task supposing lecture in face-to-face interaction and applied our model to investigate (1) average percentage of total mutual gaze convergence, (2) duration of mutual gaze convergence, (3) the domination relationship between lectures and students during short lectures, including (4) the effects of attention span, which claimed to last for 10–20 minutes, toward short lecture task (5 minutes). Our results showed that the average total mutual gaze convergence between the lecturer and the student is 52.83%. It reveals the fact that in both long and short lecture, humans have momentary gaze fixation at a particular direction. We also found out that attention span has effect on different durations of lecture task, resulting in different dominance between lecturer and student, be it student for long lecture and lecturer for short lecture. We believe that our developed model implementation and findings exhibit practical applicability and worthy of contribution to the communities of related research areas.
['Chidchanok Thepsoonthorn', 'Takahiro Yokozuka', 'Jinhwan Kwon', 'Robin Miao Sin Yap', 'Shunsuke Miura', 'Ken-ichiro Ogawa', 'Yoshihiro Miyake']
Look at you, look at me: Detection and analysis of mutual gaze convergence in face-to-face interaction