ESRC Society Today

The significance of looking someone in the eye varies from one culture to another. In Britain, meeting a person's gaze is usually considered polite and a sign of respect. Children who look away when asked a question by a teacher are therefore often reprimanded for dreaminess and lack of concentration. Research at the University of Stirling suggests that this not fair. A study of five- and eight-year-olds found that children who look away at a certain point in an interaction are thinking, not dreaming. The findings suggest that children's use of gaze changes with age. Five year olds tend to hold the gaze of a teacher more, whilst older children look away when responding to more difficult questions in order to 'switch off' potential distractions.

Key findings

• Gaze aversion is potentially a useful cue for teachers since it gives a non-verbal indication of a child's level of understanding and concentration.
• It is relatively easy to train five year olds to avert their gaze more when answering questions. This increases their ability to answer both verbal and arithmetical questions.
• Children develop the use of gaze aversion as a concentration tool during their fifth year.
• In the laboratory, children averted their gaze less when interviewed across a live video link than when interviewed face to face. However, question difficulty had an enormous impact on the amount that children averted their gaze from the interviewer in both situations. This suggests that children avert their gaze when answering difficult questions to avoid the extra mental effort of monitoring faces, rather than for social reasons, such as embarrassment.
• Low levels of gaze aversion can mean that the child has given up.
• Teachers associate gaze aversion with thinking and concentration, although they do not always respond to children's gaze behaviour. 
• Teachers and other professionals must be proficient in 'reading' children's gaze aversion in conjunction with other cues, although they should bear in mind that the reason for this behaviour changes with age.    

About the study

The findings are based on observations of the gaze patterns of children aged from 4 - 8 years when they were asked verbal and arithmetical questions of varying levels of difficulty. A further study observed the interaction of teachers and groups of children in similar circumstances. Thirdly, 52 primary teachers took part in a survey about children's gaze behaviour. The research was conducted by Professor Gwyneth Doherty-Sneddon at the University of Stirling.

Key words

Gaze, attention, children, concentration

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