How the calculator works
When you read something below your camera, your eyes rotate down by an angle that depends on two numbers: how far below the lens the text is, and how far you sit from the screen. The calculator uses basic trigonometry: angle = arctan(offset ÷ distance).
What the research says
A 2025 study in the Journal of Vision photographed actors looking between 7° above and 7° below a camera, then asked viewers which images felt like eye contact. Perceived eye contact peaked at about 2° below the lens (Gao et al., 2025). Earlier work by Milton Chen (CHI 2002) found people are an order of magnitude less sensitive to gaze that falls below their eyes than to gaze that drifts sideways or up.
The zones in the calculator follow those findings:
- Up to 3°: within a degree of the measured peak.
- 3–7°: inside the range the study tested, with eye contact becoming less convincing as the angle grows.
- Over 7°: beyond the tested range. The middle of a laptop screen usually lands here.
Typical numbers on a MacBook
Screen centres are approximate and derived from Apple's published display resolutions and pixel densities. Angles assume you sit 55 cm (about 22 inches) from the screen.
| Where you read | Below the lens | Gaze angle |
|---|---|---|
| Right under the camera | ≈ 2 cm | ≈ 2.1° |
| Middle of a 13" MacBook Air | ≈ 10 cm | ≈ 10.3° |
| Middle of a 14" MacBook Pro | ≈ 10.3 cm | ≈ 10.6° |
| Middle of a 16" MacBook Pro | ≈ 11.7 cm | ≈ 12.0° |
How to use the result
If your notes land above 7°, move them. Put what you read in the strip directly under the camera and keep it narrow, so your eyes don't sweep sideways. Cuey is a Mac teleprompter built to sit in exactly that strip. For the full reasoning, read where to look on a video call.