Gaze aversion : A response to cognitive or social difficulty?

When asked questions, adults and children often avert their gaze at certain points within the interaction, especially when questions are difficult (Doherty-Sneddon, Bruce, Bonner, Longbotham, & Doyle, 2002; Glenberg, Schroeder, & Robertson, 1998). Gaze aversion may be a way of managing the c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Memory & cognition 2005-06, Vol.33 (4), p.727-733
Main Authors: DOHERTY-SNEDDON, G, PHELPS, F. G
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adults
Affect
Behavior
Biological and medical sciences
Child
Child development
Children & youth
Cognition
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive load
Consciousness
Developmental psychology
Environment
Eye contact
Female
Fixation, Ocular
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Intimacy
Male
Memory
Pedagogy
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Social Behavior
Social psychology
Surveys and Questionnaires
Verbal communication
Visual Perception
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Summary:When asked questions, adults and children often avert their gaze at certain points within the interaction, especially when questions are difficult (Doherty-Sneddon, Bruce, Bonner, Longbotham, & Doyle, 2002; Glenberg, Schroeder, & Robertson, 1998). Gaze aversion may be a way of managing the cognitive load associated with the processing of visual environmental information, or it may serve to alleviate a negative social-emotional experience, such as the self-consciousness associated with, for example, a fear of failure. In the present study, thirty-six 8-year-olds were questioned either face to face or across a live video link. Questions varied in type (arithmetic, verbal reasoning, and autobiographical and episodic memory) and in difficulty. Children averted their gaze more during face-to-face questioning than during video-mediated questioning; however, question difficulty had a very strong influence on aversion in both interview conditions. It is concluded that although social factors play a role in children's gaze aversion during pedagogical question-answer sequences, the primary function of averting gaze is to manage the cognitive load involved in the processing of environmental information.
ISSN:0090-502X
1532-5946
DOI:10.3758/BF03195338