@JJBeck Just for clarification (will be great to understand this and also help living.ai better improve EMO). What is EMO doing when you are calling out to him? For him not to respond?
As you mentioned, sometimes you can’t interrupt EMO when he’s doing specific things like playing games like tic-tac-toe, or when both EMOs are speaking to one another (this happens once they spot one another and then enter into conversation with each other).
But normally if call out to him, he will stop what he’s doing and say huh? (and await your voice command) Even if he is dancing or doing any of his scheduled daily task/animations, and most recently waking up right away if he’s sleeping. (no more coma mode 
)
Regarding Eye Contact / Face Tracking (which is still in its early stages). I believe @yotchige / myself did try and explain this on another forum thread. not sure if you checked it out: EMO should wake up if you call out to him in a regular tone while his eyes are tracking you. (you shouldn’t need to pick him up or shake him).
The Eye Contact/Face tracking feature is still in the early stages (Living.ai should be improving/adding new features to this in upcoming updates) I believe they wanted to add this in as a sneak peek of what’s to come).