Neuroscience News: When Eyes Meet, Neurons Start to Fire
“The phenomenon of extracting meaning in the gaze between two people has been documented in art and literature for millennia but scientists have had a difficult time uncovering how the brain accomplishes such a subtle feat.”
“There are strong robust signals in the brain that are signatures of an interactive social gaze,” said Yale’s Steve Chang, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience, a member of the Wu-Tsai Institute and the Kavli Institute for Neuroscience, and the senior author of the study.
“...The interactions of two individual minds as they dynamically and reciprocally extract information from each other’s eyes are difficult to tackle. Chang’s lab overcame this obstacle by monitoring the brain activity of monkeys while simultaneously tracking the eye positions of two animals. This enabled them to record a large array of neurons as the animals spontaneously gazed at each other.”
“They found that specific sets of socially tuned neurons fired across multiple brain regions at different times during mutual eye contact. For instance, one set of neurons fired when one individual initiated mutual eye contact, but not when that individual followed the other’s gaze.”
“Another set of neurons were active when the monkeys were in the process of deciding whether to complete mutual eye contact initiated by the other. And interestingly, when fixing a gaze onto another individual some neurons marked the distance relative to another’s eyes, but when receiving a gaze yet another set of neurons signaled how close the other individual was.”
“The brain regions in which neuronal activation took place provided hints into how the brain assesses the meaning of the gaze. Surprisingly, part of the network activated during social gaze interaction included the prefrontal cortex, the seat of higher-order learning and decision-making, as well as the amygdala, the center for emotion and valuation.”
“Social gaze interaction likely serves a critical role in shaping social connectedness, and the prefrontal-amygdala networks might make that happen.”
Read the full article here.
#EyeContact #Socialization #TheBrain
My Take:
Like all of us, there have been many moments in my life that have been shaped and affected by eye contact. From just basic meeting and greeting conversation to flirting and beyond. So, to be honest, I felt like I wasn’t altogether that surprised by this article’s findings.
What I have noticed, off and on in my life, is that for me, eye contact (especially mutually) seems to be the biggest part of the social dance, per se. And there have been times where I have read the other person’s intentions accurately, and other times…not so much, lol.
At any rate, psychology coupled with socialization and personality will always be of interest to me. There are times in life where I feel that it’s the sheer number and differences in the personalities out there that keep me from getting bored. :)
And as a question for you all:
In what ways have you noticed eye contact/mutual eye contact affect you in your lives? This question can apply to just about any setting really.
@sereneSunset26 Great article! When I was younger, due to self-esteem issues, I had difficulty in making and maintaining eye contact. And during those times, I felt no connection to anyone I was talking to. But now I can maintain eye contact and I just feel so much more connected. I feel like I can read their reactions better. When they say that the eyes are the window to the soul, they're not joking!
@comfortableNight4463
I would say that I've had a pretty similar journey as yourself in regards to self-confidence juxtaposed with eye contact.
Like you said, there is such a good reason why the axiom exists of the eyes being windows into our souls. There's definitely (for me) something that feels almost *tangible* when I'm in conversation with someone while maintaining that connection with them via mutual eye contact.
@sereneSunset26 I agree! It's very interesting.
@sereneSunset26
Maintaining eye contact is a great way to facilitate social connection and a host of many other things, such as promoting feeling of connection for situations romantic, professional and even casual! It's a great article detailing what occurs when eye contact occurs.
@sunnyWriting4806
Most definitely!!
And I think for this reason, it's why I find the autism spectrum to be so interesting. One of my sister's kids is on that spectrum, but is so bright and communicative. With eye contact, though, it definitely is more of a challenge for them and kind of depends on their mood. :)
