ArticleScientific reports2025
The influence of human agency beliefs on ascribing gaze-signalled communicative intent.
Article in Scientific reports, 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
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Communication with artificial agents, such as virtual characters and social robots, is becoming more prevalent, making it crucial to understand how their behaviours can best support social interaction. Eye gaze is a key communicative behaviour, as it signals attention and intentions. Prior research shows that perceiving an agent as sentient affects how its gaze is interpreted. This study examined how such beliefs affect the interpretation of gaze as a signal of communicative intent. In a semi-interactive online task, 160 participants viewed a virtual agent exhibiting dynamic gaze sequences. Each trial varied whether eye contact occurred and whether the agent looked at the same object twice. Participants judged whether the agent was requesting help or merely inspecting the object. Beliefs about the agent's sentience (human- or AI-controlled) were also manipulated. Results showed that when gaze cues were ambiguous, participants were more likely to ascribe communicative intent if they believed the agent was human-controlled compared to when they believed the agent was AI-controlled. Subjective ratings also indicated a general preference for human-controlled agents. These findings underscore the influence of user expectations on interpreting gaze in artificial agents.
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.