 | Eye contact: Encyclopedia II - Eye contact - The role of eye contact in facilitating the expression of emotions
Eye contact - The role of eye contact in facilitating the expression of emotions
Eye contact and facial expressions provide key social and emotional information; we continually probe each other's eyes and faces for positive or negative mood signs. The eyes have often been described as the "windows of the soul", and in some contexts, gazing at another's eyes may arouse strong emotions.
Eye contact - Love and attraction
Lovers often gaze into each other's eyes for extended periods of time to show and [nonverbal communication] express their love for one another.
Eye contact - Fear and intimidation
In primate behavior, the unwavering gaze is used as a sign of dominance and threat, while gaze avoidance originated as a submissive cue. Looking directly into the others' eyes for a prolonged time may be an effective way of intimidating somebody. In some instances, eye contact may rarely last longer than three to five seconds before one or both viewers experience a powerful urge to glance away. Breaking eye contact lowers stress levels (as measured, e.g., by breathing rate, heart rate, and sweaty palms).
Most common with stutterers is the inability to maintain eye contact with the listener, which may in turn hamper the growth of personal or professional relationships [1].
Eye contact - Confidence and trust
Eye contact is crucial to establishing a connection and a sense of trust between the individuals involved, and regular, friendly eye contact actively shows the other person that you are interested in him/her and what he/she has to say. There is more direct gaze when people like each other and cooperate, while people make less eye contact when they dislike each other or disagree.
Eye contact - Physiological responses
The size of the pupils may reveal a great deal about a person's emotions, convictions, and moods. Strong emotions may stimulate the sympathetic nervous system to cause dilation of the pupils. In response to a threat or fear, this is often called the fight or flight response.
The pupil may dilate if a person sees something (or someone) of interest or is aroused, thus making eye contact much more intense than it already is. Studies have shown that humans (especially females) are judged as more attractive if their pupils are wide open and more dilated than is normal.
Being looked at so arouses the sympathetic nervous system so that we may feel compelled to glance away.
Other related archivesCultural, Errol Morris, Evil eye, Interpersonal communication, Japan, Samurai, Staring contest, The gaze, U.S., adults, age, alertness, anxiety, aroused, attention, attractive, babies, behavior, birth, bonds, breasts, breathing, consciously, cultures, dominance, elevators, emotional, eyes, faces, facial expressions, females, fight or flight response, gazing, geometric, hands, heart rate, mood, moods, mother, neck, nonverbal, nonverbal communication, peasants, people, person, personal, physical gap, primate, primates, pupil, pupils, relationships, seconds, shyness, smile, social, soul, spiritual, stress, stutterers, submissiveness, sympathetic nervous system, threat, trees, windows
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The role of eye contact in facilitating the expression of emotions", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
