ArticleBMC psychology2025
Task difficulty modulates the effect of eye contact on word memory in females.
Article in BMC psychology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe influence of eye contact on memory has been a topic of extensive study, yet its effects remain ambiguous. This inconsistency may be attributed to the varying levels of task difficulty encountered when conducting this type of research.
methodsTo explore this possibility, our study used a word memory task that also integrated eye gaze as a means of examining how task difficulty (easy or difficult) modulates the effect of eye contact on word memory. A total of 41 participants engaged in the memory task under varying eye contact conditions.
resultsOur findings revealed a significant interaction between task difficulty and eye contact: For easy tasks, memory accuracy was lower with eye contact, whereas for difficult tasks, accuracy was improved with eye contact. Intriguingly, this effect was predominantly observed in female participants. In easy tasks, eye contact appeared to hinder memory performance in females, whereas it enhanced performance in difficult tasks.
conclusionsThese results suggest that the impact of eye contact on memory is not uniformly positive or negative, but is instead contingent on task complexity and influenced by gender differences. This study contributes new insights into the fluctuating effects of eye contact on memory, thereby enriching our understanding of the relationship between nonverbal social cues and cognitive processes.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.