The Relative Effects of Eye-Gaze and Smiling on Arousal in Asocial Situations

Summary

The link between eye-gaze and arousal has received support in several studies where the gaze was presented independently of a social situation. Three hypotheses were identified suggesting that the results of these studies are limited in their applicability to normal social interaction. One hypothesis proposed that nonverbal behaviors usually affect arousal in combination with other behaviors, a second that the salience of any behavior may vary between laboratory and normal interaction, and a third that arousal effects are stronger in the laboratory than in normal interaction. Eye-gaze and smiling were combined in a 2 × 2 design and presented to 10 male graduate students whose alpha EEG was recorded as an index of arousal. The setting was asocial in that no interaction occurred during stimulus presentation. Results showed only smiling produced arousal and only during the first five seconds of a 20-second trial. No effects for eye-gaze were obtained. Failing to replicate gaze effects and obtaining a smile effect indicated caution in assuming a gaze-arousal link as well as in generalizing from asocial to social situations.