Overview

• Caruana’s team pinpointed that a gaze pattern of object→eye contact→object most effectively signals a request for help.
• Participants interpreted the sequence equally when it was displayed by human or robotic avatars during a block-building task with 137 volunteers.
• Published in Royal Society Open Science, the study shifts focus from static eye cues to the temporal context of gaze in conveying communicative intent.
• Follow-up experiments are probing how gaze duration, repeated looks and perceived agent identity further refine models of nonverbal signaling.
• Insights are being embedded in prototypes across education, manufacturing and support programs for hearing-impaired and autistic individuals to create more intuitive help-request interactions.