When people are engaged in cognitive processing, they tend to shift their gazes away from the center of their visual field to the periphery. This gaze aversion behavior is observed mostly, but not exclusively, during social interactions when people avert their gaze away from their interlocutor while they are thinking about what to say next. But small gaze aversions occur also when participants are alone and engaged in internal cognitive processing. In this talk, I will present a series of studies examining this behavior from both the perceptual-attentional and the social aspects. In the first part of the talk, I will show evidence supporting the role of gaze aversions as an attentional mechanism for avoiding distraction.  I will discuss how this behavior is part of an active sensing system, in which “active avoidance” is not less important than “active approach”.  In the second part of the talk, I will show preliminary evidence for the social role of gaze aversions as a signal for cognitive engagement during human interactions. Together, these studies highlight the important role of eye movements in integrating the perceptual, attentional, and social systems, constantly balancing between approach and avoidance, with the goal of optimizing our cognitive performance while communicating our mental states to others.