Kreysa Helene, Kessler Luise, Schweinberger Stefan R
Department of Psychology, General Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany.
DFG Research Unit Person Perception, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany.
PLoS One. 2016 Sep 19;11(9):e0162291. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0162291. eCollection 2016.
A speaker's gaze behaviour can provide perceivers with a multitude of cues which are relevant for communication, thus constituting an important non-verbal interaction channel. The present study investigated whether direct eye gaze of a speaker affects the likelihood of listeners believing truth-ambiguous statements. Participants were presented with videos in which a speaker produced such statements with either direct or averted gaze. The statements were selected through a rating study to ensure that participants were unlikely to know a-priori whether they were true or not (e.g., "sniffer dogs cannot smell the difference between identical twins"). Participants indicated in a forced-choice task whether or not they believed each statement. We found that participants were more likely to believe statements by a speaker looking at them directly, compared to a speaker with averted gaze. Moreover, when participants disagreed with a statement, they were slower to do so when the statement was uttered with direct (compared to averted) gaze, suggesting that the process of rejecting a statement as untrue may be inhibited when that statement is accompanied by direct gaze.
说话者的注视行为可以为感知者提供大量与交流相关的线索，从而构成一个重要的非语言互动渠道。本研究调查了说话者的直接注视是否会影响听众相信真假不明陈述的可能性。研究人员向参与者展示了视频，视频中说话者以直接注视或回避注视的方式说出这些陈述。这些陈述是通过一项评分研究挑选出来的，以确保参与者事先不太可能知道它们是真是假（例如，“缉毒犬无法嗅出同卵双胞胎之间的差异”）。参与者在强制选择任务中表明他们是否相信每一条陈述。我们发现，与回避注视的说话者相比，参与者更有可能相信直接注视他们的说话者所说的陈述。此外，当参与者不同意某条陈述时，当该陈述以直接（与回避相对）注视说出时，他们做出否定的速度会更慢，这表明当陈述伴有直接注视时，将该陈述判定为不真实的拒绝过程可能会受到抑制。
