Visual attention and the acquisition of information in human crowds
Gallup and colleagues tracked the movement and head direction of 3,325 pedestrians in real crowds to study how visual attention spreads. In the first study, confederates looked up at a point on a building, and passers-by became more likely to copy the gaze as the group grew, with the effect levelling off for larger groups. A model built on the results suggested that gaze following spreads attention between people but is too weak to create a tipping point. A second experiment with two confederates behaving suspiciously supported the model. Most visual interaction happened within about two metres, and the strength of response depended on the physical setting, the social context and the passer-by's sex.
Gallup and colleagues tracked the movement and head direction of 3,325 pedestrians in real crowds to study how visual attention spreads. In the first study, confederates looked up at a point on a building, and passers-by became more likely to copy the gaze as the group grew, with the effect levelling off for larger groups. A model built on the results suggested that gaze following spreads attention between people but is too weak to create a tipping point. A second experiment with two confederates behaving suspiciously supported the model. Most visual interaction happened within about two metres, and the strength of response depended on the physical setting, the social context and the passer-by's sex.
Written from the abstract, university repository record, 2026-11-01.
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Gallup, A. C., Hale, J. J., Sumpter, D. J. T., Garnier, S., Kacelnik, A., Krebs, J. R., & Couzin, I. D. (2012). Visual attention and the acquisition of information in human crowds. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(19), 7245-7250. doi:10.1073/pnas.1116141109