The Head-in-world and Eye-in-head Orientation in a Triadic Conversation

Abstract

Gaze behavior plays a key role in both daily physical activities and complex social interactions. In addition to eye movements, head direction also has a significant impact on gaze direction, especially in real-world environments that require large-scale spatial movement. Although head direction can generally serve as a reliable indicator of gaze—particularly when it aligns with eye movements—in socially sensitive situations, individuals may deliberately separate eye and head directions to hide their true focus of attention. In addition, emerging leadership roles in group interactions may also affect individuals' gaze behavior. This study used a wearable eye tracker and ArUco markers to explore how gaze direction in triadic conversation is achieved by "head-in-the-world" and "eyes-in-the-head" orientation. Thirty-three participants were divided into 11 groups and completed a 15-minute collaborative survival sorting task, during which both eye and head orientations were continuously recorded. The results reveal patterns of attention allocation in complex social environments and highlight how gaze and head cues can jointly indicate focus in triadic conversations. Notably, group gender composition affected gaze characteristics, and different gaze patterns were observed between leader and followers. Future research could more systematically investigate the influence of group demographic variables on nonverbal communication by addressing current limitations in the distribution of visual stimuli, enhancing the precision of head movement tracking, using an automatic synchronization procedure, and utilizing more diverse participant samples along with more rigorous experimental designs.