observers and eye contact

I haven't posted in a while ... I wound up with so many posts saved up in my head that I couldn't get them all down. But this I had to post, in case anyone ever reads it. In this study involving bonobos (a kind of primate considered by many to be the most similar to humans), the authors state that a bonobo was far more likely to make eye contact if there was no third individual observing. That is, if a third bonobo was looking at them, the first bonobo was likely to turn away from a second bonobo, and not make eye contact. I find a lot of interesting things to think about in that.