Gaze leading is associated with liking

- Gaze plays a pivotal role to coordinate joint attention between humans.
- The ability to lead the gaze direction of others is crucial to joint attention.
- Participants were exposed to two human avatars connected to an eye-tracker.
- Participants' liking of the avatars increased when the avatars followed their gaze.
- The increase in liking was also effective when initial liking was low.

Gaze plays a pivotal role in human communication, especially for coordinating attention. The ability to guide the gaze orientation of others forms the backbone of joint attention. Recent research has raised the possibility that gaze following behaviors could induce liking. The present study seeks to investigate this hypothesis. We designed two physically different human avatars that could follow the gaze of users via eye-tracking technology. In a preliminary experiment, 20 participants assessed the baseline appeal of the two avatars and confirmed that the avatars differed in this respect. In the main experiment, we compared how 19 participants rated the two avatars in terms of pleasantness, trustworthiness and closeness when the avatars were following their gaze versus when the avatar generated gaze movements autonomously. Although the same avatar as in the preliminary experiment was rated more favorably, the pleasantness attributed to the two avatars increased when they followed the gaze of the participants. This outcome provides evidence that gaze following fosters liking independently of the baseline appeal of the individual.