Wang Yin, Hamilton Antonia F de C
a School of Psychology , University of Nottingham , Nottingham , UK.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2014;67(4):747-62. doi: 10.1080/17470218.2013.828316. Epub 2013 Aug 29.
Eye gaze is a powerful signal, which exerts a mixture of arousal, attentional, and social effects on the observer. We recently found a behavioural interaction between eye contact and mimicry where direct gaze rapidly enhanced mimicry of hand movements ). Here, we report two detailed investigations of this effect. In Experiment 1, we compared the effects of "direct gaze", "averted gaze", and "gaze to the acting hand" on mimicry and manipulated the sequence of gaze events within a trial. Only direct gaze immediately before the hand action enhanced mimicry. In Experiment 2, we examined the enhancement of mimicry when direct gaze is followed by a "blink" or by "shut eyes", or by "occluded eyes". Enhanced mimicry relative to baseline was seen only in the blink condition. Together, these results suggest that ongoing social engagement is necessary for enhanced mimicry. These findings allow us to place the gaze-enhancement effect in the context of other reported gaze phenomena. We suggest that this effect is similar to previously reported audience effects, but is less similar to ostensive cueing effects. This has important implications for our theories of the relationships between social cues and imitation.
目光注视是一种强大的信号，它会对观察者产生唤醒、注意力和社交等多种影响。我们最近发现了眼神接触与模仿之间的一种行为交互作用，即直接注视会迅速增强对手部动作的模仿 。在此，我们报告对这一效应的两项详细研究。在实验1中，我们比较了“直接注视”、“回避注视”和“注视动作手”对模仿的影响，并在一次试验中操纵了注视事件的顺序。只有在手部动作之前的直接注视才会增强模仿。在实验2中，我们研究了直接注视后紧接着“眨眼”、“闭眼”或“遮挡眼睛”时模仿的增强情况。相对于基线水平，只有在眨眼条件下才观察到模仿增强。总之，这些结果表明持续的社交互动对于增强模仿是必要的。这些发现使我们能够将注视增强效应置于其他已报道的注视现象的背景中。我们认为这种效应与先前报道的观众效应相似，但与明示性提示效应不太相似。这对我们关于社交线索与模仿之间关系的理论具有重要意义。
