Eye contact meme might have flaws

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Eye Contact Increases Resistance to Persuasion
Popular belief holds that eye contact increases the success of persuasive communication, and prior research suggests that speakers who direct their gaze more toward their listeners are perceived as more persuasive. In contrast, we demonstrate that more eye contact between the listener and speaker during persuasive communication predicts less attitude change in the direction advocated. In Study 1, participants freely watched videos of speakers expressing various views on controversial sociopolitical issues. Greater direct gaze at the speaker’s eyes was associated with less attitude change in the direction advocated by the speaker. In Study 2, we instructed participants to look at either the eyes or the mouths of speakers presenting arguments counter to participants’ own attitudes. Intentionally maintaining direct eye contact led to less persuasion than did gazing at the mouth. These findings suggest that efforts at increasing eye contact may be counterproductive across a variety of persuasion contexts.

(from: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/09/25/0956797613491968.abstract )

This isn't actually all that new...perhaps to "modern" science, but ancient speech teachers knew about it. Cicero (who might as well be the Jesus of speech), claimed that a rhetor (speaker) should look at a person's eyes to be confrontational, their mouth to be agreeable, their forehead to be dominant, and their chin to be submissive. Each one of those locations depends on who the audience is and what the rhetor's standing was with said audience. So new, not exactly, finally accepting old wisdom, that sounds about right.