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Description: Link to published manuscript: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2018.0036 Abstract Initiating joint attention by leading a person’s gaze is a rewarding experience which facilitates social interaction. Here, we investigate this mechanism applying a more realistic paradigm than traditional screen-based experiments. We used an embodied robot as our main “stimulus” and recorded participants’ eye-movements. Participants sat opposite a robot which had one of two ‘identities’ – “Jimmy” or “Dylan”. Participants were asked to look at one of two objects presented on screens to the left and the right of the robot. Jimmy then looked at the same object in 80% of the trials and at the other object in the remaining 20%. For Dylan, this contingency was reversed. Upon fixating on one of the objects, participants were asked to look back at the robot’s face. We found that return-to-face saccades were conducted earlier toward Jimmy when he followed the gaze compared with when he did not. For Dylan, there was no such effect of gaze-following behaviour. Additional measures indicated that our participants preferred the former robot and liked him better. This study demonstrates a) the potential of technological advances to examine joint attention where ecological validity meets experimental control, and b) that social attention is enhanced when we initiate joint attention.