Research

Our research aims to answer questions regarding the purpose and psychological effects of sustained eye gaze. Making eye contact has been shown to be beneficial in many contexts (e.g., make someone seem more truthful in a courtroom or confident in an interview), but we tend not to make eye contact for longer than a few seconds. Why? One reason might be that eye contact for longer periods is too arousing or too distracting by demanding more of our attention. Research in our lab has shown that sustained eye gaze does seem to affect time perception and memory. We have also shown that physiological arousal elicited by eye gaze and associated behaviours (e.g., talking, laughing) can be modulated by the context by which the participants are in (either cooperative or competitive). Future work is examining the interaction between eye gaze, arousal and memory.

Our research focuses on the perceptual characteristics on slot-machines. We ask questions that address the effects of the flashing lights and celebratory sounds that accompany "wins" and are absent for losses. Specifically we study two types of outcomes: near-misses and losses disguised as wins (LDWs). These two outcomes give the impression of winning when they are really losses. How so? Near-misses occur when the player "almost" wins, but just fell short of one winning symbol. In these cases, players often feel like they are getting closer to a win, or get frustrated about the short-fall - both of which usually increase motivation to play again. LDWs occur when multiple lines are bet on (e.g., $5 total), but only 1-2 provide wins (e.g, get back $1). In these instances, the machine reacts as if the player won, when in fact they lost money (e.g, lsot $4). Our research aims to examine the effects of these outcomes on phyisological arousal, gambling behaviour, and memory for wins.