From the Kingston Whig-Standard ("the oldest continuously published newspaper in Canada")
(http://www.kingstonwhigstandard.com/content.asp?contentid=3543)

By Sarah Crosbie

November 20, 2002

Local News - I spy with my little eye, someone who is giving new meaning to the importance of eye contact.

Roel Vertegaal, a Queens University computer scientist, is studying the effect of eye gaze on conversation and its implications on technologies like video conferencing.

Vertegaal says people wont believe their eyes when they see his results, which hes presenting this week at a computing conference in the United States.

He has discovered that the amount of eye contact people receive in group situations determines how much they talk.

"Whats cool about eye contact is that its visual ... its the most clear, overt way about getting peoples attention," Vertegaal said yesterday.

"The moment you start looking away, thats interpreted as youre not interested anymore."

While psychologists have been investigating the importance of eye contact for years, Vertegaal is one of the first to examine the role of eye contact and its relationship with technology. His findings dont bode well for those who rely on video conferencing. The technology has become an increasingly popular way to communicate since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, because people are fearful of travel.

Vertegaal discovered in his research that video conferencing hampers conversation because there is no real eye contact between people. Without eye contact, people arent encouraged to talk and share their views and information.

"If the actor would start looking at the other actor, people would say more because they can tell when they have a turn," he said of his research. "Its an offer to take the floor."

"Theres a ridiculously big correlation between the amount of eye contact and the amount people speak."

Video conferencing that exists now is much like TV broadcasts. Reporters make it seem like theyre making eye contact with the people sitting at home watching the news but theyre not really looking at one person and making eye contact with him or her alone.

Vertegaal said that people who have used video conferencing havent taken part in group conversations because there were no social cues to do so.

"Eye contact is one of the most intimate acts - almost as much as touching," Vertegaal said. "If you look too long, people can turn red. Its really an emotional thing."

Vertegaals study, which used computer-generated images from actors and subjects who believed they were in a three-way video conference, looked at what type of gaze inspired people to talk more.

He looked at synchronized gaze, where eye contact is made while the subject is speaking, and random contact received at any time during the conversation.

Vertegaals study found that its the amount of gaze people receive from group members - not when it takes place - that incites people to talk.

Hes currently working on video conferencing systems that will allow people in groups to make eye contact.

Vertegaal and other scientists are also working on devices - like pagers, e-mail and personal digital assistants - that will communicate not only with the user but with other machines. For example, a computer will track important e-mails and know when an e-mail should be forwarded to a cellphone and then the cellphone will know whether or not a person should be interrupted to receive the message.

With Vertegaals eye-tracking computer prototype, a cellphone would turn itself off whenever its user was in a face-to-face conversation.

He said computers, phones and other gadgets will be paying more attention to us within 10 years - a key development because the number of devices people use doubles every two years.

Unbelievable? Vertegaal said in a few decades video conferencing will be outdated with the use of 3D holograms. The prototypes are at Queens.

Vertegaal said eye-tracking machinery is one of the first steps to make technologies communicate with people and other machines better.

Vertegaal said the importance of eye gazing isnt new. Clay tablets from 3000 BC tell the story of Ereshkigal, goddess of the underworld, who had the power to kill Inanna, goddess of love, with a deadly eye.

"Now that we are attempting to build more conversational interfaces that mirror the communicative capabilities of their users, its clear we need to learn more about communicative functions of gaze behaviours," he said.

Vertegaal is in New Orleans this week presenting his paper Explaining Effects of Eye Gaze on Mediated Group Conversations: Amount or Synchronization? at the Association for Computering Machinery Conference on Computer Supported Co-operative Work.