Why conversational agents should catch the eye

Abstract

We studied whether the gaze direction of users indicates whom they are speaking or listening to in multiparty conversations. Results show when someone is listening or speaking to individuals, there is indeed a high probability that the person looked at is the person listened (p=88%) or spoken to (p=77%). We implemented these findings in a multi-agent conversational system that uses eye input to gauge which agent the user is listening or speaking to.