Eye Aversion and Mental Processing
A study by Phelps, Doherty-Sneddon, and Warnock concluded that children who avoid eye contact while considering their responses to questions are more likely to answer correctly than children who maintain eye contact. According to Doherty-Sneddon:
"Looking at faces is quite mentally demanding. We get useful information from the face when listening to someone, but human faces are very stimulating and all this takes processing. So when we are trying to concentrate and process something else that's mentally demanding, it's unhelpful to look at faces."Contrariwise, Doherty-Sneddon suggests that a blank stare indicates a lack of understanding.
Read more about this topic: Eye Contact
Famous quotes containing the words eye, aversion and/or mental:
“He gives the impression of a strong mind which is composed and wise. His brown eye is exceedingly kindly and gentle. A child would like to sit in his lap and a dog would sidle up to him. It is difficult to associate his personality and this impression of kindness and gentle simplicity with what has occurred here in connection with these purges and shootings of the Red Army generals, and so forth.”
—Joseph Davies (1876–1958)
“My true friends have always given me that supreme proof of devotion, a spontaneous aversion for the man I loved.”
—Colette [Sidonie Gabrielle Colette] (1873–1954)
“In many ways, life becomes simpler [for young adults]. . . . We are expected to solve only a finite number of problems within a limited range of possible solutions. . . . It’s a mental vacation compared with figuring out who we are, what we believe, what we’re going to do with our talents, how we’re going to solve the social problems of the globe . . .and what the perfect way to raise our children will be.”
—Roger Gould (20th century)