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Triadic Gaze

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Definition of Triadic Gaze

Triadic gaze requires two individuals (a looking individual and a perceiver) and a third party (an object, event, or a person) as the focus of the attention of the individuals. It involves a relatively more complex information processing mechanism than a dyadic gaze that requires perceivers to identify whether a looking individual’s eyes are directed toward them. To achieve triadic eye gaze, the perceiver must recognize the line of site of the looking individual’s eyes and trace along two invisible lines of the site to their convergent point, that is, the third party of the triad (e.g., an object; Lee et al. 1998). Although triadic eye gaze can also be used to regulate one-to-one social interaction, another major and unique function of triadic eye gaze is that it can be used to reveal an individual’s focus of attention and internal states (desire, goal, etc.; Lee et al. 1998). In the literatures of human developmental studies, triadic gaze that mutually...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Sanae Okamoto-Barth

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  1. Sanae Okamoto-Barth
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Correspondence to Sanae Okamoto-Barth .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University , Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Jennifer Vonk

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University Department of Psychology, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Todd Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada

    Dawson Clary

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Okamoto-Barth, S. (2018). Triadic Gaze. In: Vonk, J., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Animal Cognition and Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1556-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_1556-1

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