Perception of Another Person's Looking Behavior

Abstract

The classical senses in normal use require not only receptors but also muscles for adjusting them. Touching, sniffing and tasting, listening, and above all, looking, involve some degree of motor activity. These responses have no effect on the environment, it is true, but they do have an effect on the stimulation which controls behavior. In different ways, they explore the possibilities of stimulation, maximizing, refining, and sharpening its content of information. Focused, stabilized, and appropriately centered retinal images, for instance, are the product of a whole complex of ocular responses which have been recorded and are fairly well understood. The sense-organ adjustments, in short, are a form of observable behavior. The act of visual attention in another person can be perceived simply by watching his face, and we do in fact notice where a person is looking. The act of looking can be treated as a source of stimulation as well as a type of response. The eyes not only look, but are looked at. The direction of a person's gaze usually indicates what object he is interested in or what person he is responding to in the sphere of the environment, and a shift of his fixation may indicate what he is going to do next, as the boxer and the fencer know. The fact of being looked at, that is, a line of gaze fixed on the body of the observer himself, is especially significant.