It is sometimes said that the eyes are the mirrors of the soul, revealing deep emotions that we would like to hide. While modern science denies the existence of the soul, it suggests that there is a grain of truth in this old adage: it turns out that the eyes not only reflect what is happening in your head, but can also influence the way we remember and make decisions.
Our eyes are constantly moving, and although we consciously control some of these movements, most are done subconsciously. For example, as we read, we make a series of very rapid eye movements called saccades that lock one word after another. When we enter a room, we make wide saccades, looking around. Also, the eyes move involuntarily when we walk, compensating for head movements and stabilizing our gaze. And of course, the eyes run back and forth at great speed during REM sleep.
As is now clear, some of these movements can reveal our thought process. A study published last year shows that pupil dilation is associated with a degree of uncertainty in the decision-making process: if a person is unsure of their decision, they feel heightened arousal, causing their pupils to dilate. You can even try to predict what the decision will be: One group of researchers found that by observing the dilation of the pupils, you can see when a person who is used to saying "no" is trying to make a difficult decision and say "yes."
Tobias Lotsher
Also, the eyes can give out what number a person has thought. Tobias Lotscher and his colleagues at the University of Zurich selected 12 volunteers and monitored their eye movements, asking them to randomly name 40 numbers. They found that the direction and size of the participants' pupils accurately indicated whether the next named number would be greater or less than the previous one. The volunteers' gaze shifted up and to the right before naming a larger number, and down and to the left before naming a lower number. The more movements there were, the greater the difference between the numbers.
"When people look at something that they have already encountered before, their gaze is often attracted to what they previously saw, even if there are no conscious memories."
Unfortunately, the study does not explain which comes first: thoughts about a particular number cause changes in eye position, or eye position affects mental performance. In 2013, Swedish researchers published evidence that the second option is more likely: eye movements can affect memory. As a result of a study conducted with the participation of students, they found that by distracting from the object in question and quickly looking around the environment, the subjects coped better with memorization tasks. Perhaps this is because eye movements help us remember the spatial relationships between objects in the environment that existed at the time of information coding.
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These eye movements can occur subconsciously. “When people look at something that they have encountered before, their gaze is often attracted to the previously seen, even if there is no conscious memory,” says Roger Johansson, who conducted the study.
Watch your eyes
Not so long ago, researchers have revealed an unpleasant fact: tracking the direction of the gaze can be deliberately used to influence the moral side of the decisions we make.
Scientists asked participants in the experiment difficult moral questions, such as "can murder be justified", and showed possible answers on a computer screen ("sometimes can" or "can never"). By removing the answer option on which the subject's gaze lingered the longest, the researchers were able to nudge the participants towards the specific option they needed.
“We didn't give them more information,” says neuroscientist Daniel Richardson, lead author of the study. “We just watched their own decision-making processes closely and interrupted them at exactly the right time. We made them change their minds by correctly capturing the moment of making a decision."
"A good salesperson is able to pinpoint the exact moment when you are hesitant to make a decision and offer you a discount in time."
Richardson adds that some people, especially in sales, may have an idea of this and use their knowledge to convince customers. “We think persuasive people are just good speakers, but maybe they intuitively observe the opponent’s decision-making process,” he says. discount for you."
The ubiquity of eye-tracking applications for smartphones and other handheld devices increases the ability to influence decision-making remotely. "If you shop online, they can influence your decision by offering free shipping when your gaze lingers on a particular product."
Thus, eye movements are able to reflect and influence memory and decision making, and give out our thoughts and desires. This knowledge, on the one hand, gives room for self-improvement, on the other hand, it tells the manipulators how else they could get into our heads and pull the strings of our decisions.
“The eyes are like windows to our thought processes, and we cannot estimate how much information can be obtained from them,” says Richardson. - They can tell about a person even things that he does not want to admit to himself, such as implicit racial or other bias. Eye tracking, from a high-tech perspective, can be useful, but it can be done not only by engineers and psychologists, but also by crooks."