The ‘Mona Lisa Effect’ refers to the impression that the eyes of a person in an image seem to follow the viewer as they move in front of it. Two researchers from the Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology at Bielefeld University demonstrate that, ironically, this effect does not even occur with da Vinci’s world-famous painting.

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Dr Gernot Horstmann and Dr Sebastian Loth asked 24 people to look at the Mona Lisa on a computer screen and assess the direction of her gaze. They sat in front of the monitor. A simple folding ruler was positioned between them and the screen at seve­ral distances. They indicated where the Mona Lisa’s gaze met the ruler. In order to test whether individual features of Mona Lisa’s face influenced the viewers’ perception of her gaze, the researchers used 15 different sections from the portrait – starting from her entire head to only her eyes and nose. Each image was shown three times in random order. Halfway through the session, the researchers also changed the distance of the ruler from the monitor.

Horstmann and Loth gathered more than 2,000 assessments this way – and almost every single measurement indicated that the Mona gaze is not straight on but to the viewer’s right-hand side.

The result: “The participants in our study had the impression that the Mona Lisa’s gaze was aimed to their right-hand side. More specifi­cally, the gaze angle was 15.4 degrees on average,” says Dr Horstmann. “Thus, it is clear that the term ‘Mona Lisa Effect’ is nothing but a misnomer. It illustrates the strong desire to be looked at and to be someone else’s centre of attention – to be relevant to someone, even if you don’t know the person at all.”

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