Deict and eye contact

The deictic gaze and ocular contact They are the best proof that the look goes far beyond simply "seeing" or observing something, since it also fulfills a social function.

When we look at another person, we also realize their existence, which would take us to the Philosophical approaches to otherness, o Awareness of individuality from a perspective outside the ourselves.

The deictic look is a way of establishing contact with another human being, using only the sense of sight.

The deictic gaze and ocular contact

The deictic look occurs when we look at another person who looks the other way, and feel an irresistible desire to look at what the other is looking. Thus, for example, if we are walking down a street and see one or more people looking up, following the theory of deictic gaze, We will also feel the inclination of looking at that place.

Apparently, this is a gesture that we have learned from the primitive time, and that today, is regularly used in advertising. The publicists turn to the deictic gaze when all those fences and photographs in containe.

According to the author Stephen v. Shepherd, In his study on deictic gaze as a window to social cognition, in order to understand what another subject is seeing, we must first perceive and interpret the posture of his body, his head and his eyes.

From there, then, it is tried to deduce the direction of his gaze and imagine what is the best way, in a covert way, to imitate his perspective, so, the observable point of view is related to the physical point of view.

Shepherd argues that The act of following the other's look is essential to access the mental and internal state of the other subject. In addition, it alleges that this capacity is present in the early stages of development and that it is not only exclusive in humans, but also occurs in many species. This capacity would be based on neuronal systems, similar to those of humans.

Thus, it is consistent that the look in addition to being an important communicative channel among adults, also strongly influences early development, because, shortly after the first year of age, Babies follow the adults whose eyes are open and exposed.

The two ways of looking

One of the ways of looking is through the monitoring of the gaze of others, that is, The deictic gaze, which, as mentioned, consists in looking at the eyes of another person who looks to another place.

But, there is another way of looking, and it is the ocular contact or shared gaze, in which the two subjects look mutual.

The most interesting thing is that these look patterns are usually combined and give rise to behavior that is called "Alternation of the look", in which a subject alternatively observes an object or an event, and the eyes of the other individual, so that between them is established a "Mutual attention".

All this is an indication that animals, among which our species are included, turn to the look as a way of pointing out -a deictic manure -and thus guide the behavior of the other.

In the case of humans, these responses are given in a reflexively and omnipresent way, that is, that They arise in just a fraction of second And, apparently, they are related to our initial development in language and mind theory.

The fact that non -human animals share these basic monitoring behaviors of the gaze, also suggests that the foundations of human social cognition can be in their brains.

An example of this is that, When we want to know what another individual is thinking, we look in the eye and this helps us to capture, through the visual approach, what is in his mind, that is, we elaborate inferences about their private intentions and the messages that communicate publicly. This is why neuronal systems have evolved to the point that we can process the two forms of looks, direct and deictic.

Finally, it is possible to affirm that the visual behavior of the deictic gaze and the eye contact are a way that, by acting together, It serves to give way to social interaction with other subjects, This indicates that it works to establish intentional and social communication.

Stereognosis: recognize objects with touch

Bibliography

• From C Hamilton AF (2016). Looking at me: the importance of social meaning to understand the signals of the direct gaze. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. B series, biological sciences, 371 (1686), 20150080. https: // royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/RSTB.2015.0080
• Pfeiffer UJ, Schilbach L, Jording M, Timmermans B, Bente G, Vogeley K. EYES ON THE MIND: INVESTIGATION THE INFFLUENCE OF GAZE DYNAMICS ON THE PERCEPTION OF OTHERS IN REAL-TIME SOCIAL INTERACTION. Front Psychol. 2012 Dec 3; 3: 537. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00537. PMID: 23227017; PMCID: PMC3512550.
• Shepherd s. V. (2010). Following Gaze: Gaze-Footing Behavior As a Window into Social Cognition. Frontiers in integrative neuroscience, 4, 5. https: // www.Frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/Fnint.2010.00005/full
• Shepherd SV, Platt ML. Social Spontaneous Orienting and Gaze Following in Ringtared Lemurs (Lemur Catta). Anim Cogn. 2008 Jan; 11 (1): 13-20. DOI: 10.1007/S10071-007-0083-6. EPUB 2007 May 10. PMID: 17492318.