Previous eye-tracking studies of whether recipients look at speakers. gestures have yielded conflicting results but have also
differed in method. This study aims to isolate the effect of the medium of presentation on recipients’ fixation behaviour
towards speakers’ gestures by comparing fixations of the same gestures either performed live in a face-to-face condition or
presented on video ceteris paribus. The results show that although fewer gestures are fixated on video, fixation behaviour
towards gestures is largely similar across conditions. In discussing the effect of the absence of a live interlocutor vs.
the projection size as a source for this reduction, we touch on some underlying mechanisms governing gesture fixations. The
results are pertinent to man-machine interface issues as well as to the ecological validity of video-based paradigms needed
to study the relationship between visual and cognitive attention to gestures and Sign Language.
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of Birgit and Gad Rausing’s Foundation for Research in the Humanities, and
of the Max Planck Society.