Percevoir un regard direct, c’est-à-dire un regard dirigé vers soi et qui aboutit généralement à un contact par le regard, influence une large gamme de processus cognitifs et de comportements. Dans cet article, nous présentons les effets du contact par le regard en les regroupant en quatre catégories : la mémorisation facilitée pour les informations concomitantes ou subséquentes au regard, l’activation de comportements prosociaux, l’évaluation positive de soi et d’autrui et l’amélioration de la conscience de soi. Nous présentons ensuite les modèles qui ont été proposés pour rendre compte de ces effets, et discutons de leurs limites. Nous soulignons surtout que les effets du contact par le regard sont bénéfiques, faisant de ce contact un outil thérapeutique possible. Nous développons cette idée en montrant comment les effets du contact par le regard pourraient améliorer la symptomatologie et/ou les relations sociales dans trois pathologies : la dépression, l’autisme et la maladie d’Alzheimer. Pour finir nous proposons des stratégies possibles destinées à utiliser les effets du contact par le regard comme outil thérapeutique potentiel. De futures investigations sont néanmoins requises afin de déterminer les populations dans lesquelles les effets du contact par le regard pourraient effectivement être utilisés comme outil thérapeutique, et de quelle façon intégrer cet outil en thérapie.

The perception of a direct gaze – that is, of another individual's gaze directed at the observer that leads to eye contact – is known to influence a wide range of cognitive processes and behaviors. We stress that these effects mainly reflect positive impacts on human cognition and may thus be used as relevant tools for therapeutic purposes.

In this review, we aim (1) to provide an exhaustive review of eye contact effects while discussing the limits of the dominant models used to explain these effects, (2) to illustrate the therapeutic potential of eye contact by targeting those pathologies that show both preserved gaze processing and deficits in one or several functions that are targeted by the eye contact effects, and (3) to propose concrete ways in which eye contact could be employed as a therapeutic tool.

(1) We regroup the variety of eye contact effects into four categories, including memory effects, activation of prosocial behavior, positive appraisals of self and others and the enhancement of self-awareness. We emphasize that the models proposed to account for these effects have a poor predictive value and that further descriptions of these effects is needed. (2) We then emphasize that people with pathologies that affect memory, social behavior, and self and/or other appraisal, and self-awareness could benefit from eye contact effects. We focus on depression, autism and Alzheimer's disease to illustrate our proposal. To our knowledge, no anomaly of eye contact has been reported in depression. Patients suffering from Alzheimer disease, at the early and moderate stage, have been shown to maintain a normal amount of eye contact with their interlocutor. We take into account that autism is controversial regarding whether gaze processing is preserved or altered. In the first view, individuals are thought to elude or omit gazing at another's eyes while in the second, individuals are considered to not be able to process the gaze of others. We adopt the first stance following the view that people with autism are not interested in processing social signals such as gaze but could do so efficiently if properly motivated. For each pathology we emphasize that eye contact could be used, for example, to enhance sensitivity to bodily states, thus improving emotional decision making (in autism); to lead to more positive appraisal of the self and others (in depression); to improve memory performances (in Alzheimer disease) and, more generally, to motivate the recipient to engage in the therapeutic process. (3) Finally we propose two concrete ways to employ eye contact effects as a therapeutic tool. The first is to develop cognitive-behavioral tools to learn and/or motivate the recipient to create frequent and prolonged eye contact periods. The second is to raise awareness among caregivers of the beneficial effects of eye contact and to teach them the way to use eye contact to reach its optimum effects. Future investigations are however needed to explore the ways in which eye contact effects can be efficiently integrated in therapeutic strategies, as well as to identify the clinical populations that can benefit from such therapeutic interventions.