Perception of direct gaze in a video-conference setting: the effects of position and size

A common problem in video conferences is gaze direction. In face-to-face communication, it is common that speaker and listener intermittently look at each other. In a video-conference setting, where multiple participants are on the screen, things are complicated and not necessarily optimal. If the listener feels looked at when the speaker looks into the camera, how tolerant is the listener for slight deviations? And does this depend on the position of the speaker’s tile on the screen, or the size of the tile? In a first experiment, participants from a student population judged whether they are looked at, while vertical gaze direction of the looker was varied. Furthermore, the position of the tile on the screen varied. The results showed that a slightly upward directed gaze was optimal for the direct gaze judgment, with a width of ± 4 degrees. Optimal gaze direction was somewhat higher for tiles at the bottom of the screen. A second experiment tested the effect of size on the perception of horizontal gaze directions. Size was found to increase the gaze cone. The paper concludes with some recommendations for a setup of video conference systems, optimized for perceived gaze contact.