New research by the University of South Australia in partnership with the University of Stuttgart, Flinders University and the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Germany have developed hi-tech machine-learning algorithms to reveal a connection between personality and eye movements.

The results highlight that people's eye movements display how outgoing, conscientious or inquisitive they are, with the algorithm software efficiently identifying four of the Big Five personality traits: neuroticism, extroversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness.

Eye movements 42 participants’ were traced as they assumed daily tasks on a university campus, and later evaluated their personality traits using reliable questionnaires.

UniSA's Dr. Tobias Loetscher says the study presents new connections between earlier overlooked eye movements and personality traits and brings key insight for the upcoming ground of social signal processing and social robotics.

"There's certainly the potential for these findings to improve human-machine interactions," Dr. Loetscher says.

"People are always looking for improved, personalized services. However, today's robots and computers are not socially aware, so they cannot adapt to non-verbal cues.

"This research provides opportunities to develop robots and computers so that they can become more natural, and better at interpreting human social signals."

Dr. Loetscher notes that the findings also furnish us with a vital link between heavily scrutinized laboratory studies and the study of natural eye movements in real-world events.

"This research has tracked and measured the visual behavior of people going about their everyday tasks, providing more natural responses than if they were in a lab.

"And thanks to our machine-learning approach, we not only validate the role of personality in explaining eye movement in everyday life but also reveal new eye movement characteristics as predictors of personality traits."