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Chapter 10. Gaze as a predictor for lexical and gestural alignment

  • Bert Oben
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Eye-tracking in Interaction
This chapter is in the book Eye-tracking in Interaction

Abstract

This chapter provides evidence for the role gaze might have on behaviour at another multimodal level of behaviour, viz. alignment (or copying behaviour) of hand gestures and lexical items. In a corpus of dyadic interactions we demonstrate that gaze behaviour affects alignment behaviour differently at the lexical than at the gestural level: if a speaker is looking at an addressee’s face while uttering a target word, this significantly increases the probability that the addressee will use that same word later in the conversation. If a speaker is looking at an addressee’s face while performing a target gesture, there is no correlation with subsequent gesture production by that addressee. However, if an addressee looked at a gesture made by a speaker, this gesture was significantly more often used by that addressee later in the conversation (compared to situations in which the addressee was not looking at that gesture). We argue that the difference in gaze behaviour between lexical and gestural alignment cases might be explained by the dual function of eye gaze in interaction, viz. gaze for visual perception and gaze for signalling meaning.

Abstract

This chapter provides evidence for the role gaze might have on behaviour at another multimodal level of behaviour, viz. alignment (or copying behaviour) of hand gestures and lexical items. In a corpus of dyadic interactions we demonstrate that gaze behaviour affects alignment behaviour differently at the lexical than at the gestural level: if a speaker is looking at an addressee’s face while uttering a target word, this significantly increases the probability that the addressee will use that same word later in the conversation. If a speaker is looking at an addressee’s face while performing a target gesture, there is no correlation with subsequent gesture production by that addressee. However, if an addressee looked at a gesture made by a speaker, this gesture was significantly more often used by that addressee later in the conversation (compared to situations in which the addressee was not looking at that gesture). We argue that the difference in gaze behaviour between lexical and gestural alignment cases might be explained by the dual function of eye gaze in interaction, viz. gaze for visual perception and gaze for signalling meaning.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  4. Part 1. Theoretical considerations
  5. Chapter 2. Eye gaze as a cue for recognizing intention and coordinating joint action 21
  6. Chapter 3. Effects of a speaker’s gaze on language comprehension and acquisition 47
  7. Chapter 4. Weaving oneself into others 67
  8. Chapter 5. On the role of gaze for successful and efficient communication 91
  9. Part 2. Methodological considerations
  10. Chapter 6. Quantifying the interplay of gaze and gesture in deixis using an experimental-simulative approach 109
  11. Chapter 7. Gaze and face-to-face interaction 139
  12. Chapter 8. Automatic analysis of in-the-wild mobile eye-tracking experiments using object, face and person detection 169
  13. Part 3. Case studies
  14. Chapter 9. Gaze, addressee selection and turn-taking in three-party interaction 197
  15. Chapter 10. Gaze as a predictor for lexical and gestural alignment 233
  16. Chapter 11. Mobile dual eye-tracking in face-to-face interaction 265
  17. Chapter 12. Displaying recipiency in an interpreter-mediated dialogue 301
  18. Index 323
https://doi.org/10.1075/ais.10.10obe

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  4. Part 1. Theoretical considerations
  5. Chapter 2. Eye gaze as a cue for recognizing intention and coordinating joint action 21
  6. Chapter 3. Effects of a speaker’s gaze on language comprehension and acquisition 47
  7. Chapter 4. Weaving oneself into others 67
  8. Chapter 5. On the role of gaze for successful and efficient communication 91
  9. Part 2. Methodological considerations
  10. Chapter 6. Quantifying the interplay of gaze and gesture in deixis using an experimental-simulative approach 109
  11. Chapter 7. Gaze and face-to-face interaction 139
  12. Chapter 8. Automatic analysis of in-the-wild mobile eye-tracking experiments using object, face and person detection 169
  13. Part 3. Case studies
  14. Chapter 9. Gaze, addressee selection and turn-taking in three-party interaction 197
  15. Chapter 10. Gaze as a predictor for lexical and gestural alignment 233
  16. Chapter 11. Mobile dual eye-tracking in face-to-face interaction 265
  17. Chapter 12. Displaying recipiency in an interpreter-mediated dialogue 301
  18. Index 323
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