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The research concerns the effect of frontline employees’ averted or direct gaze on consumers’ evaluation of the encounter. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that in normal interactions, a direct or averted gaze affects people’s evaluation of others. The question was whether this finding would hold true in commercial interactions.

The authors conducted three experiments using a written scenario with a photograph among a total sample of 612 participants.

This research showed that consumers’ social impression of the frontline employees mediated the effect of the employees’ gazing behaviour on consumers’ emotions and satisfaction with the encounters. The findings also showed that averting gaze had a negative effect on consumers’ first impression of the frontline employee, which affected consumers’ satisfaction with the encounter. The findings also showed that a direct gaze had a negative effect on encounter satisfaction when consumers sought to purchase embarrassing products.

The research demonstrated that the effect of gaze on encounter satisfaction was mediated by the social impression and moderated by consumers’ approach/avoidance motivation.

This study aimed to understand better the user gaze behavior on bookshelves using eye-tracking technology.

An eye-tracking experiment in a public library with 11 participants was performed. The impact of vertical shelf location of books on the number of times the books are looked at, the impact of horizontal location and the relationship between user behavior and location impact were examined by the findings.

The results showed that the vertical location of books has a significant impact on the number of times the books are looked at. More than 80% of the time spent looking at bookshelves was spent on books on the top to fourth rows. It was also revealed that the horizontal location of books has a little impact. Books located on the left side of shelves will be looked at significantly more often than those on the right side. No significant relationships between type of user behaviors and location impact were observed.

The study explored the impact of the vertical location of books on time spent looking at bookshelves using eye-tracking methodology. Few published studies do such experiments to address user gaze behavior on bookshelves. The study explored that the vertical location of books has a great impact, and horizontal location has a little impact on user gaze behavior.

Based on interviews with 27 victims’ family members and survivors, this chapter explores how memory of the Oklahoma City bombing was constructed through participation in groups formed after the bombing and participation in the trials of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. It first addresses the efficacy of a collective memory perspective. It then describes the mental context in which interviewees joined groups after the bombing, the recovery functions groups played, and their impact on punishment expectations. Next, it discusses a media-initiated involuntary relationship between McVeigh and interviewees. Finally, this chapter examines execution witnesses’ perceptions of communication with McVeigh in his trial and execution.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the social and affective aspects of communication in school-age children with HFA and school-age children with WS using a micro-analytic approach. Social communication is important for success at home, school, work and in the community. Lacking the ability to effectively process and convey information can lead to deficits in social communication. Individuals with high functioning autism (HFA) and individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) often have significant impairments in social communication that impact their relationships with others. Currently, little is known about how school-age children use and integrate verbal and non-verbal behaviors in the context of a social interaction.

A micro-analytic coding scheme was devised to reveal which channels children use to convey information. Language, eye gaze behaviors and facial expressions of the child were coded during this dyadic social interaction. These behaviors were coded throughout the entire interview, as well as when the child was the speaker and when the child was the listener.

Language results continue to pose problems for the HFA and WS groups compared to their typically developing (TD) peers. For non-verbal communicative behaviors, a qualitative difference in the use of eye gaze was found between the HFA and WS groups. For facial expression, the WS and TD groups produced more facial expressions than the HFA group.

No differences were observed in the HFA group when playing different roles in a conversation, suggesting they are not as sensitive to the social rules of a conversation as their peers. Insights from this study add knowledge toward understanding social-communicative development in school-age children.

In this study, two non-verbal behaviors will be assessed in multiple contexts: the entire biographical interview, when the child is the speaker and when the child is the listener. These social and expressive measures give an indication of how expressive school-age children are and provide information on their attention, affective state and communication skills when conversing with an adult. Insights from this study will add knowledge toward understanding social-communicative development in school-age children.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has a large number of applications at the industry and user levels. However, AI's uniqueness neglect is becoming an obstacle in the further application of AI. Based on the theory of innovation resistance, this paper aims to explore the effect of AI's uniqueness neglect on consumer resistance to AI.

The authors tested four hypothesis across four studies by conducting lab experiments. Study 1 used a questionnaire to verify the hypothesis that AI's uniqueness neglect leads to consumer resistance to AI; Studies 2 focused on the role of human–AI interaction trust as an underlying driver of resistance to medical AI. Study 3–4 provided process evidence by way of a measured moderator, testing whether participants with a greater sense of non-verbal human–AI communication are more reluctant to have consumer resistance to AI.

The authors found that AI's uniqueness neglect increased users' resistance to AI. This occurs because the uniqueness neglect of AI hinders the formation of interaction trust between users and AI. The study also found that increasing the gaze behavior of AI and increasing the physical distance in the interaction can alleviate the effect of AI's uniqueness neglect on consumer resistance to AI.

This paper explored the effect of AI's uniqueness neglect on consumer resistance to AI and uncovered human–AI interaction trust as a mediator for this effect and gaze behavior and physical distance as moderators for this effect.

Despite representing a relatively small portion of the population, those who experience repeat victimization make up a significant share of all sexual and violent crimes, implying that perpetrators target them repeatedly. Indeed, research reveals specific traits (e.g. submissiveness) and behaviors (e.g. gait) related to past victimization or vulnerability. The purpose of this study is to explore the link between personality traits, self-assessed vulnerability and nonverbal cues.

In all, 40 undergraduate Canadian women were videotaped while recording a dating profile. Self-report measures of assertiveness, personality traits and vulnerability ratings for future sexual or violent victimization were obtained following the video-recording. The videotape was coded for nonverbal behaviors that have been related to assertiveness or submissiveness.

Self-perceived sexual vulnerability correlated with reduced assertiveness and dominance and increased emotionality (e.g. fear and anxiety). Additionally, nonverbal behaviors differed based on personality traits: self-touch was linked to lower assertiveness, dominance and extraversion and higher submissiveness, emotionality and warm-agreeableness.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of its kind to consider the relationships between personality, self-perceived vulnerability and nonverbal behaviors among college-aged women. Potential implications, including enhancing autonomy and self-efficacy, are discussed.

Avatars, which are used as a technology and marketing tactic, can embody consumer-facing employees and mimic their real-life roles on companies' websites, thereby playing a key role in enhancing the relationships between consumers and brands in the online environment. Academics and practitioners have increasingly acknowledged the significance of the consumer-brand relationship in both traditional and online contexts. However, the impersonal nature of the online environment is considered to be a hindrance to the development of these relationships. Despite the importance of this technology, little attention has been paid to the investigation of the avatar concept from a marketing perspective. This paper explores the nature of the avatar concept, including its main characteristics, dimensions, and conditions as well as the attitudinal and behavioural consequences of avatar users.

Adopting the qualitative design, a taxonomy was developed from interviews. In total, 42 interviews were conducted with current university students. 30 participants participated in the exploratory interviews. A total of 12 interviews were conducted during the in-depth stage based on findings in the preceding research.

Based on the qualitative data analysis, a taxonomy was developed. The idea of the taxonomy is summarized in that different dimensions of the avatar are considered the main base (first phase) of the taxonomy. There are consequential three parts: the attitudinal consequences related to the website; the attitudinal consequences related to the brand; the behaviours towards the brand. These behaviours represent the final phase of the taxonomy.

By developing a taxonomy of using avatars on brands' websites, the authors advance the understanding consumer-brands relationships. Using avatars' verbal interactions helps in shaping consumers' cognitive, affective, attitudinal and behavioural responses and add vital empirical evidence to the increasing body of research and practices involving avatar usage in the interactive marketing area.

This study aims to reconsider Chinese tourist gaze studies, examining the extent to which extant studies and theoretical models relating to the Chinese tourist gaze have overcome the Eurocentric limits of John Urry’s concept of the tourist gaze and elaborated the complexity of Chinese tourists’ gazes and visual practices.

Content analysis is carried out, examining research articles, books, book chapters and PhD and MSc theses collected from multiple English and Chinese databases.

The research results manifest that, overall, the previous studies, mobilise cultural essentialism, with an overestimation of the “Chineseness” of Chinese tourists’ behavioural patterns, which are widely believed to be framed by, but also constituting of, unique Chinese culture. Overdependence on Chinese cultural values and traditional philosophies as sources for rationale has resulted in a handful of theoretical frameworks, which appear to be of insufficient magnitude both in terms of their contribution to the original tourist gaze model and in their manifesting of the complexity of Chinese tourists’ visual behaviour. Indeed the divide that once deliberately set apart West and East, or more precisely Western and Chinese tourist gazes, seems to become accentuated in most attempts to study and write about Chinese tourist gaze(s). The previous studies thus largely serve to mirror the Eurocentrism of Urry’s gaze, rather than challenging it.

This study has a few limitations, especially, as this study only reviews and analyses the studies of the Chinese tourist gaze. It means that the conclusion might not well be generalised to either the investigation of the tourist gaze in another culture or the Chinese tourist studies, at large, which might exhibit a different pattern deserving more academic attention in future. Moreover, the authors recommend the future researchers, who are eager to probe Chinese tourists’ behavioural pattern, to seek for new pathways and alternative paradigms, which would be useful in overcoming the limits of cultural representations and in reducing the problematic Sino-Western divide.

Despite not aiming to reconceptualise the Chinese tourist gaze, this review paper contributes to the field of tourist gaze studies by engaging critically with the bias and theoretical insufficiencies that have emerged, while this concept is appropriated and re-formulated to explain Chinese tourists’ gazes and visual practices. On this basis, the authors suggest a critical redirection of the extant Chinese tourist gaze studies, which would be rather significant to those researchers in future with an interest to research what the Chinese tourists prefer to see in travel and how they engage with the gazee.

中国性与行为复杂性：反思中国游客凝视研究

本文重新检视有关中国游客凝视的研究, 审视现有研究和理论模型在多大程度上克服了约翰·厄里提出的游客凝视概念所蕴含的欧洲中心主义的局限, 并阐述中国游客凝视和视觉实践的复杂性。

本研究进行了内容分析; 资料来源于多个渠道的期刊论文、书籍、书章和博硕论文。

总体而言, 以往研究调动了文化本质主义, 过分强调了中国游客行为模式的“中国性”–被广泛认为受制于中国文化, 且也是中国文化一部分。对作为基本理论来源的中国文化价值观和传统哲学的过度依赖产生了一系列理论框架, 但它们在对最初的游客凝视模型的贡献上, 以及在对中国游客视觉行为的复杂性的阐释上, 都是不够的。在大部分中国游客凝视研究中, 以往对西方游客和中国游客的凝视的刻意区分都得以凸显, 从而映照出厄里的游客凝视概念所蕴含的欧洲中心主义。

虽然本评述论文并不致力于对中国游客凝视进行重新概念化, 但依旧对游客凝视研究领域做出了贡献。当游客凝视这一概念被挪用且重新定制以解释中国游客凝视和视觉实践时, 本文对涌现其间的偏见和理论上的缺陷进行了批判性的揭示。在此基础上, 我们认为, 有必要对有关中国游客凝视的研究做出批判性的重新定向。这对于未来有志于研究中国游客视觉偏好以及他们如何与被凝视者互动的研究人员而言, 尤其重要。

本研究有一些局限, 特别是, 因为我们只评价和分析了有关中国游客凝视的研究。这意味着, 我们的结论可能不能被推广至对其他文化情境下的游客凝视的调查, 也不能推广至中国游客研究整体。我们建议, 对中国游客行为模式感兴趣的研究人员需要寻求新的路径和替代性的范式, 以克服文化表象的局限并减少中西分歧带来的问题。

Carácter chino y la complejidad de comportamiento: repensar los estudios de la mirada del turista chino

Este artículo reconsidera los estudios de la mirada del turista chino para investigar hasta qué punto los estudios y los modelos teóricos existentes sobre la mirada del turista chino han superado los límites eurocéntricos del concepto de la mirada del turista de John Urry y explicado la complejidad de la mirada del turista chino y las prácticas visuales.

Se lleva a cabo el análisis de contenido investigando artículos de investigación, libros, capítulos de libros y las tesis de PhD y de MSc provenientes de las diversas bases de datos tanto en inglés como en chino.

Los resultados de la investigación manifiestan que, en general, los estudios anteriores movilizan el esencialismo cultural con una sobrestimación del “carácter chino” del modelo del comportamiento de turistas chinos, se cree en gran medida que el cual es motivado por la cultura china mientras forma parte de ella. Lo que la fuente de los fundamentos básicos sobredepende de los valores culturales y la filosofía tradicional de China resulta una pequeña cantidad de marcos teóricos, que no son suficientes tanto para la contribución al modelo original de la mirada del turismo como para manifestar la complejidad del comportamiento visual de turistas chinos. De hecho, se destaca la intención de la separación del Occidente y el Oriente, o hablando de forma precisa, de la mirada del turista occidental y la del turista chino al estudiar y escribir sobre la mirada del turista chino. Los estudios anteriores reflejan el eurocentrismo de la mirada de Urry en vez de ponerlo en duda.

A pesar de que el artículo no tiene la reconceptualización de la mirada del turista chino como su objetivo, contribuye al ámbito de la investigación de la mirada del turista a través de revelar de manera crítica el prejuicio y la insuficiencia teórica que ya ha existido cuando se usa y se reformula este concepto para explicar la mirada del turista chino y las prácticas visuales. Con lo que hemos mencionado, planteamos una redirección crítica de los estudios existentes de la mirada del turista chino, lo cual sería significativo para aquellos que tienen la intención de investigar qué prefieren ver los turistas chinos durante el viaje y cómo van a interactuar con los mirados en el futuro.

Esta investigación tiene varios límites, sobre todo, como solo revisamos y analizamos los estudios de la mirada del turista chino, lo cual significa que nuestra conclusión no se podría generalizar tanto a la investigación de la mirada del turista de otras culturas como a los estudios del turismo chino, que mostrarían un modelo diferente que merece más atención académica en el futuro. Al mismo tiempo, recomendamos a las personas que se interesen por investigar el modelo del comportamiento de los turistas chinos buscar nuevos caminos y paradigmas alternativos, los cuales serían útiles para superar los límites de las representaciones culturales y reducir la división problemática sino-occidental.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of visual communications on Instagram users’ propensity to engage with image-based content through online behaviors such as liking, sharing, commenting and following, and their intention to purchase the product depicted in the visual communications.

An experimental design was used to measure the effect of branded Instagram images on a sample of active Instagram users. Two features of Instagram images (subject’s gaze: direct vs indirect; product salience: low vs high) were manipulated and their interactive effect tested on online behaviors.

The paper offers empirical evidence that direct gaze and high product salience positively affect digital visual engagement. Moreover, digital visual engagement influences intention to purchase.

The hypotheses were tested on a single product category and on only two image-based features. Further studies might replicate the experiment on different product categories and include different image-based features.

This empirical study can offer communication managers important information on the image-based features that are most effective in increasing digital visual engagement and positively influencing purchase intentions in visual communications.

The study empirically demonstrates that the choice of specific image-based features in visual communication matters for increasing digital visual engagement among Instagram users.

The purpose of this paper aims to investigate the effect of a model's eye gaze direction on the information processing behavior of consumers varying based on their gender.

An eye-tracking experiment and a memory test are conducted to test the research hypotheses.

Compared to an averted gaze, a model with a direct gaze attracts more attention to the model's face among male consumers, leading to deeper processing. However, the findings show that when a model displays a direct gaze rather than an averted gaze, female consumers pay more attention to the brand name, thus leading to deeper processing.

This study contributes to not only the existing eye gaze direction literature by integrating the facilitative effect of direct gaze and considering the moderating role of consumer gender on consumer information processing but also the literature concerning the selectivity hypothesis by providing evidence of gender differences in information processing. Moreover, this study offers practical insights to practitioners regarding how to design appealing webpages to satisfy consumers of different genders.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-01-2020-0025