Eye contact occurs when two people or animals look at each other’s eyes at the same time.
Eye contact is a form of nonverbal communication and can have a large influence on social behavior.
Eye contact regulates conversations, shows interest or involvement, and establishes a connection with others.
The customs, meaning, and significance of eye contact vary greatly between societies, neurotypes, and religions.
The study of eye contact is sometimes known as oculesics.
Eye contact and facial expressions provide important social and emotional information.
People, search other’s eyes and faces for positive or negative mood signs.
The meeting of eyes sometimes arouses strong emotions.
Eye contact provides some of the strongest emotions during a social conversation because it provides details on emotions and intentions.
In a group, if eye contact is not inclusive of a certain individual, it can make that individual feel left out of the group.
Prolonged eye contact can tell someone you are interested in what they have to say.
Eye contact is also an important element in flirting, where it may serve to establish and gauge the other’s interest in some situations.
Mutual eye contact that signals attraction initially begins as a brief glance and progresses into a repeated volleying of eye contact.
Encouraged eye contact occurs by narrowing the visible face down to the eyes.
In the process of civil inattention, strangers in close proximity, such as a crowd, avoid eye contact in order to help maintain their privacy.
3- to 6-month-old infants’ smiling decreased when adult eye contact was removed.
Face recognition by infants is facilitated by direct gaze.
Within their first year, infants learn rapidly that the looking behaviors of others conveys significant information.
Infants prefer to look at faces that engage them in mutual gaze and that, from an early age, healthy babies show enhanced neural processing of direct gaze.
A person’s direction of gaze may indicate to others where their attention lies.
Eye contact has a positive impact on the retention and recall of information and may promote more efficient learning.
The amount of eye contact between mothers and infants increases continuously over the first 12 weeks.
A study found that the mother who held eye contact with her child early on (week 1–4) was described as sensitive to her infant whereas if she did not hold eye contact, her behavior was described as insensitive.
There is a negative relationship between eye contact and the duration of crying of the infants; as eye contact increases, crying decreases.
Individuals with the autism spectrum disorders or social anxiety disorders may find eye contact to be particularly unsettling.
Strabismus interferes with normal eye contact: a person whose eyes are not aligned usually makes full eye contact with one eye only, while the orientation of the other eye deviates slightly or more.
A study showed that children who avoid eye contact while considering their responses to questions are more likely to answer correctly than children who maintain eye contact.
While humans obtain useful information from looking at the face when listening to someone, the process of looking at faces is mentally demanding and takes processing, and may be unhelpful to look at faces when trying to concentrate and process something else that is mentally demanding.
A blank stare likely indicates a lack of understanding.
In many cultures, it is respectful not to look the dominant person in the eye, but in Western culture this can be interpreted as being “shifty-eyed”.
and the person judged badly because “they wouldn’t look me in the eye”;
“Shifty-eyed” can refer to suspicions regarding an individual’s unrevealed intentions or thoughts.
The seeking of constant unbroken eye contact by the other participant in a conversation can often be considered overbearing or distracting by many possibly on an instinctive or subconscious level.
In traditional Islamic theology, it is often generally advised to lower one’s gaze when looking at other people in order to avoid sinful sensuous appetites and desires.
Excessive eye contact or staring is also sometimes described as impolite, inappropriate, or even disrespectful, especially between youths and elders or children and their parents, and so lowering one’s gaze when talking with older people is seen as a sign of respect and reverence.
Japanese children are taught in school to direct their gaze at the region of their teacher’s Adam’s apple or tie knot. As adults, Japanese lower their eyes when speaking to a superior as a gesture of respect.
In the practice of psychiatry and clinical psychology, as part of a mental status exam, the clinician may describe the initiation, frequency, quality of eye contact, whether the patient initiates, responds to, sustains, or evades eye contact or whether eye contact is unusually intense or blank, or whether the patient glares, looks down, or looks aside frequently.
Eye contact can also be a significant factor in interactions between non-human animals, and between humans and non-human animals.
Animals of many species, including dogs, often perceive eye contact as a threat.
On the other hand, extended eye contact between a dog and its owner modulates the secretion of oxytocin, a neuromodulator that is known for its role in maternal-infant bonding.
Among primates, eye contact is seen as especially aggressive, and staring at them in a zoo can induce agitated behavior.
Chimpanzees use eye contact to signal aggression in hostile encounters.