Gaze is the most studied nonverbal channel in clinical communication, and the one most often lost when a consultation is reviewed from a transcript alone. Kendon's foundational work distinguished gaze at a partner from gaze away, and showed the two do different interactional work: looking at signals attention and yields the floor, looking away accompanies planning and self-disclosure.
Intended for detection studies on video frames or photographs. Draw a box around the person's head and code where their gaze is directed. In a multi-person frame, code each person separately — the interesting measure is usually whether the two codes coincide (see the Engagement Cues scale for mutual gaze as its own code).
A frame is not a gaze event. A single image can only tell you where someone was looking at that instant. Duration, mutuality over time and gaze-aversion patterns need a video timeline, not a frame — code what the frame supports and no more.
Severity is clarity. Head pose is a weak proxy for eye direction: a face turned toward the partner with eyes down is not gaze-at-partner. If the eyes are not resolvable, the honest rating is Uncertain or Partial regardless of how the head is angled.