Eye-Contact and Depression: A Preliminary Report

Abstract

Riemer (1955) has argued that gaze is an ‘expression of affect’ between individuals. Kendon (1967) writes that the direction of gaze has a regulatory and expressive function, and ‘fluctuations in the amount of eye-contact during the course of one conversation showed that it was inversely related to the amount of emotionality displayed by the participants'. Also that it has a regulatory function which governs the pattern of social interaction. Argyle and Dean (1965) made similar observations in their concept of intimacy. They postulate that there is an Intimacy Equilibrium; Intimacy is a function of eye-contact, physical proximity, intimacy of topic, amount of smiling etc. They have shown that an alteration in one variable produces a change in the others until an equilibrium is reached. Exline et al. (1965, 1966, 1967) have described other aspects of eye-contact in relation to sex, dependency, social reinforcement, affiliative needs and affective relations. These findings support those of Kendon and Argyle.

Thin-Slice Judgments in the Clinical Context

“…Personality disorder-specific traits can be accurately perceived in thin slices of nonverbal behavior, and even psychopathology can be accurately perceived in both videos of targets as well as facial photographs (e.g., Fowler et al, 2009;Friedman et al, 2007;Holtzman, 2011). Both depression and anxiety can be accurately perceived in thin slices (see Harrigan et al, 2004;Hinchliffe et al, 1970Hinchliffe et al, , 1971Waxer, 1974Waxer, , 1976Yang et al, 2013). State and trait anxiety, for instance, are both detectable in thin slices, but in different channels.…”

“…Depressed patients displayed more contraction of lower corners of their mouth (associated with negative emotion), looked downward more, and moved their hands less. Additionally, continuous judgments of the severity of depression predicted scores on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory Depression scale (see also Hinchliffe, Lancashire, & Roberts, 1970). Another study comparing participants who had recovered from depression to those who were still depressed found that those who were still depressed maintained less mutual eye gaze (Hinchliffe, Lancashire, & Roberts, 1971).…”

The Psychophysiological Experience of Solving Moral Dilemmas Together: An Interdisciplinary Comparison Between Participants With and Without Depression

“…Results of eye-tracking studies reveal that, compared to non-depressed controls, individuals with depression spend more time viewing negative images (e.g., sad faces) and less time with positive or neutral images (Kellough et al, 2008;Sanchez et al, 2013;Isaac, et al, 2014). Furthermore, research on clinical interviews has shown that patients with depression display less eye contact with mental health professionals than the patients with other psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia (Jones and Pansa, 1979) and non-depressed controls (Hinchliffe et al, 1970;Sobin and Sackeim, 1997;Fiquer, et al, 2018). Interestingly, the avoidance of eye contact has been observed to emerge regardless of the severity of depression and to persist relatively long after treatment (Fiquer et al, 2018).…”

Die Sozial- und Familienbeziehungen Depressiver

“…Reproduktion", welche nach Arieti (2) die Ausdrucksweise dieses Charaktertyps bestimmt, die Dynamik und den kommunikativen Austausch mit dem endogen Depressiven merklich hemmen, so bricht in der Krankheitsphase der Kontakt mit ihnen noch zusätzlich ab. Depressive haben im Vergleich zu psychisch gesunden Kontrollpersonen eine signifikante Reduktion des Redeflusses (25,53) und des Blickkontaktes (24,47). Nicht nur die allgemeine Hemmung des Antriebs und des Denkens dürfte ihre Gesprächsfahigkeit zusätzlich behindern, sondern auch ihre Unfähigkeit, sich selbst zu spüren und sich in eine Beziehung einzubringen (49).…”