Empirical studies confirm the 'Mona Lisa effect,' showing that portraits like the Mona Lisa can create the persistent illusion of following the viewer with her gaze due to the combination of iris position and head orientation.
The claim is a specific, testable empirical proposition about a well-known psychological/artistic phenomenon. Multiple retrieved papers directly discuss and investigate the 'Mona Lisa effect,' affirming that the portrait's gaze can indeed appear to follow the viewer within certain viewing parameters. No papers refute the existence of the effect itself, though some discuss boundary conditions such as viewing distance.