Direct Gaze Triggers Higher Frequency of Gaze Change: An Automatic Analysis of Dyads in Unstructured Conversation

Nonverbal cues have multiple roles in social encounters, with gaze behaviour facilitating interactions and conversational flow. In this work, we explore the conversation dynamics in dyadic settings in a free-flow discussion. Using automatic analysis (rather than manual labelling), we investigate how the gaze behaviour of one person is related to how much the other person changes their gaze (frequency in gaze change) and what their gaze target is (direct or avert gaze). Our results show that when one person is looked at they change their gaze direction with a higher frequency compared to when they are not looked at. They also tend to maintain a direct gaze to the other person when they are not looked at.