As workers of the world have been sent to their home offices, usage of video conferencing platforms, such as Zoom, have ballooned.  It’s prompted a fresh wave of consideration as to just how to effectively use such platforms to communicate.  The latest study comes via Tampere University, in Finland, which explores how eye contact affects our communication in video chats.

The study found that eye contact during video calls triggers the same kind of pscychophysiological responses as eye contact face to face.  The findings emerged after the researchers examined the physical reactions to eye contact in a range of situations, including face-to-face and via a live video call.

Responses were measured via skin conductance and activation of their facial muscles.  It’s believed that changes in our skin conductance is a reflection of the level to which our autonomous nervous system is activated.  The activation of our facial muscles reflects the positivity or negativity of this affect.

Heightened response

Eye contact in a face-to-face setting was found to elicit a heightened autonomic arousal response, which is consistent with previous studies.  Where this study is interesting, however, is that similar results were found when people engaged via a video chat.

By contrast, if volunteers viewed a video recording of another person, this response was not activated.  The direct gaze was found to induce facial reactions that are traditionally associated with positive emotions.

“Our results imply that the autonomic arousal response to eye contact requires the perception of being seen by another. Another person’s physical presence is not required for this effect,” the researchers say.  “Unexpectedly, we also found that even when the other person was presented just on video, seeing direct gaze elicited the subtle facial reactions of smiling. This suggests that these facial reactions are highly automated responses to eye contact.”

The researchers believe that their findings have clear implications for the successful use of video conferencing, especially during the covid-19 pandemic, where usage has increase so significantly in areas such as healthcare.

“Most present-day applications do not permit direct eye contact as the other person is usually seen with a slightly averted gaze. Therefore, it is not clear whether these affective similarities between in-person and video call interactions extend to the use of applications such as Skype,” the researchers conclude.