A Markovian model of adult gaze behavior.

This study was designed to test a proposed Markov chain model of adult gaze behaviors. Hypotheses for an individual's gaze behavior, dyadic visual interaction, and dyadic gaze states within an independent decision model were examined. Subjects were assigned to a same- or mixed-sex dyad and instructed to converse for approximately 5 min about life at the university. Video tapes of the conversations were unobtrusively obtained and scored by an observer of gaze behaviors for 4 1/2 min in 24 pairs of subjects: eight male, eight female, and eight mixed-sex dyads. The results indicate that the occurrence of a gaze behavior is dependent on a 0.6-sec history, but infrequently prolonged Looking behaviors were found to occur slightly more often than Markovian formulations predicted. The mathematical properties of gaze behavior demonstrated in this experiment are congruent with those of dialogic time patterns, suggesting a regularity in the gross temporal organization of nonverbal communications.