Proefschrift

166 Chapter 6 SE = 0.61, t(873.75) = -6.15, p <.001, d = 0.42). In addition, perceivers with higher trait EC and PT gazed significantly more into the eyes of others (trait EC: B = 0.73, SE = 0.36, t(104.96) = 2.02, p = .046, d = 0.40; trait PT: B = 0.79, SE = 0.39, t (105.65) = 2.03, p = .045, d = 0.40), independent of the emotional valence of the videos. In line with this, perceivers who gazed more within the eye region of targets during a video reported to empathize more with and were better able to take the perspective of the targets narrating the autobiographical story on a state level (B = 0.70, SE = 0.28, t(906.47) = 2.47, p = .014, d = 0.16 and B = 0.67, SE = 0.29, t(905) = 2.33, p = .020, d = 0.16, respectively). Target expressivity was not significantly associated with perceivers’ dwell time within the eye region of the targets (p = .571). On average, there was 9.46% (SD = 6.53%) missing gaze data during which participants gazed outside of the computer screen. The amount of missing gaze data was not dependent on the presentation order of the videos in the task. For more details on missing gaze data over the course of the task, see Supplement S6.9. In addition to the eye region, perceivers gazed on average for 15.79% (SD = 15.14%) of the total duration of the videos to the mouth of the targets. Male and female perceivers did not differ significantly in the percentage of dwell time to the mouth of the targets. In addition, valence and trait EC and PT were not significantly associated with the percentage of dwell time to the mouth of the targets. However, we found a positive association between emotional expressivity of targets and the percentage of dwell time of perceivers to the mouth of targets in the videos, with perceivers gazing more to the mouth region of more (compared to less) expressive targets (B = 0.89, SE = 0.21, t(873.56) = 4.25, p <.001, d = 0.04, Supplement S6.4-S6.8. Effects of gazing to the eyes on empathic accuracy With regard to the main focus of our study (hypothesis 1), the percentage of dwell time within the eye region of targets was not significantly related to perceivers’ EA (p = .146). In addition, there was no significant interaction between the percentage of dwell time within the eye region of targets and targets’ emotional expressivity on perceivers’ EA (hypothesis 3) (p = .416). We did find a significant interaction between the percentage of dwell time within the eye region of targets and the emotional valence of the videos on perceivers’ EA (hypothesis 2) (B = -0.01, SE = 0.002, t(892.78) = -3.33, p <.001, d = 0.22), although in opposite direction. In contrast with our expectations, there was no significant association between gazing to the eye region of targets and EA in negative videos, however, perceivers that gazed more into the eye region of the targets during positive videos were somewhat less empathically accurate (Figure 6.2, Supplement S6.10).

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