Humans are one of the few mammal species in which a relatively large brain is combined with a great capacity to process visual stimuli. We spend our days paying attention to the scenes that unfold before our eyes, imagining concrete images and unconsciously judging the non-verbal language of others, much of which is visual.

The visual experience, the one we like the most

In our free time we love to satisfy our needs to be entertained through our eyes, and as long as we see things we are even able to stay watching a succession of television commercials, something that from a rational perspective only benefits the advertiser.

Our brain is able to collect this apparent chaos of visual information and make sense of it , because it is made to adapt to a massive amount of data and give priority to certain aspects over others. Not for nothing is approximately one third of the human brain dedicated to processing visual information. It can be said that the gaze is one of our best weapons of adaptation to the environment.

But there is a context in which the gaze is not simply a tool for collecting data. What happens when, instead of looking for important information in a continuous stream of moving figures and textures, one gaze intersects with another gaze? What processes are triggered when someone’s eyes are fixed on ours and vice versa?

Creating intimacy from the gaze

Eye contact seems to be closely related to the creation of intimate bonds of affection and to the selection of possible partners. One study, for example, indicates that couples who are linked through a romantic relationship maintain eye contact for 75% of the time they spend in a conversation with the other, while the norm in the rest of the cases is 30% to 60% of the time. Moreover, the better the quality of the relationship (measured through questionnaires) the more the members that make it up tend to look at each other .

But a reciprocated gaze is not simply a symptom of intimacy: it can also be a factor in creating that climate of intimacy. In one experiment, a series of 72 people, unknown to each other, were placed in front of each other and asked to look into each other’s eyes continuously for two minutes. The couples who followed these instructions to the letter showed a greater feeling of affection and romantic love for the other person, something that did not happen to the same extent if instead of looking into each other’s eyes they looked at each other’s hands or concentrated on counting each other’s blinks.

Why does this happen?

The eyes are one of the parts of the face that we focus on most when interacting with someone. This, which seems natural and even obvious, is a rarity within the animal kingdom . However, our species has evolved to have extraordinary control over the muscles of the face that are around the eyes, and we are also especially good at recognizing the nuances and subtleties that lie behind these small movements. That’s why, to get to know someone, this is one of our favorite parts to focus our attention on, besides the mouth.

However, when we are not just looking into someone’s eyes but that someone looks back at us, the interaction changes completely as the Theory of Mind comes into play, which can be defined briefly as our ability to think about what is going on in the other person’s mind, which may be based on what they think is going on in our mind, etc.

Somehow, the fewer barriers are placed on this transmission of information in real time in the form of a gaze held and reciprocated by the other person, the more intimate it becomes in context.

Between honesty and lies

When we encounter a look that confronts us, we not only see some eyes, but the possible image that we are giving mixed with the information that the other person reveals to us . This is why eye contact is a phenomenon in which both insecurity and tuning in and the creation of an intimate context can manifest themselves.

In the negotiation between the information you get from the other and the information you give about yourself, keeping eye contact comfortably is a symptom of comfort and security in what you say and do , while the opposite is true for aversion.

In fact, already in groups of 6-year-olds there has been found a tendency to associate eye contact with honesty and aversion to the other’s gaze with lying, while those who avert their gaze may do so because they are unable to focus their attention on the other’s gaze while maintaining a false image of themselves that seems coherent.

Spontaneity is rewarded

Holding someone’s gaze seems to have a relatively high cognitive cost (it distracts us), and if we also do this deliberately and not subconsciously, the difficulty of maintaining a lively and stimulating dialogue may diminish. Thus, people who express their affinity with someone through spontaneous and not entirely planned reciprocal glances have an advantage over those who try to maintain eye contact as if it were an imposition.

In short, those people who have less reason to lie (verbally or by gesture) about themselves, are able to make mutual eye contact last longer . We can conclude from this that in order to benefit from the power of holding one’s gaze it is not enough to try to put it into practice, but it has to go hand in hand with a well worked out self-esteem and the belief that what we can offer the other person will be of mutual benefit.

Bibliographic references:

  • Einav, S. and Hood, B. M. (2008). Tell-tale eyes: children’s attribution of gaze aversion as a lying cue. Developmental Psychology, 44(6), pp. 1655 – 1667.
  • Kellerman, J., Lewis, J and Laird, J. D. (1989). Looking and loving: the effects of mutual gaze on feelings of romantic love. Journal of Research on Personality, 23(2), pp. 145 – 161.
  • Rubin, Z. (1970). Measurement of romantic love. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16(2), pp. 265 – 273.