Table of contents:
- Your eyes can feel things without realizing it
- Humans are very sensitive to the views of others
- It's not that your feelings are always right
You're in a cafe or park. Suddenly you shudder and feel as if you have a pair of eyes watching your movements. You can even feel roughly where the view is from. Whether on the left, right, from behind, or even in front of you. You must have felt watched like this, right?
Sometimes, these sensations aren't just feelings. When you look, it's true. There is indeed someone who is staring at you from afar. However, it could also be that no one is looking your way.
How can a human feel a pair of eyes watching him? Though you may not be looking in that direction. Well, here is a scientific explanation from experts why you can feel that someone is being watched.
Your eyes can feel things without realizing it
A case study in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience in 2013 revealed that people with serious visual impairments can still feel when they are being watched.
In this case study, the experts placed photographs of people's faces in front of study subjects who could not see because of cortical blindness. There are photos of people looking straight ahead, there are also photos of people looking to the side. When presented with a photo of a person looking ahead, the study subjects suddenly felt threatened and alert. The emergence of this feeling of alertness can be seen from the results of brain scans of the research subjects.
This means that your brain and eyes are very sensitive to the visual signals around you. The human eye does have a very wide and detailed range of vision. Even the eye of a person with cortical blindness can still pick up on the signs or images of the person in the photo looking at them.
Moreover, the eyes of a healthy person can see clearly. Even if you are not looking directly at the person who is watching you, your eyes and brain are able to detect other people's movements, gazes, or images.
Humans are very sensitive to the views of others
Eyes have become one of the most important means of communication for human survival. For humans, eye contact is very important to convey information and emotions effectively.
That is what distinguishes the human eye from other animals. Ants, for example, don't need eye contact to communicate because they have a special communication system that involves touch, sound, and pheromones (body odors).
Because of this, humans have an instinct to "read" other people's eyes. There is an instinctive urge to know where the other person is looking, whether at you or in another direction. By ascertaining what the other person is looking at, you can seem to know what he is thinking or feeling.
This sensitivity to the human eye is what makes you unconsciously always aware of other people's views. So when someone glances at you, you can immediately detect the movement of their eyeballs. You also become anxious and feel as if the person wants to communicate with you.
It's not that your feelings are always right
Feeling being watched by someone doesn't necessarily mean that someone is actually paying attention to you. According to a study in the journal Current Biology, when you can't guess where a person's eyes are pointing, humans immediately assume that the person must be staring at them.
For example, when someone wears sunglasses. You can't see the direction of the eyeballs, which makes you feel anxious, as if the person is looking at you. Especially when the head is pointing towards you. Though this feeling is not necessarily true.
Likewise if there are people sitting on the bus parallel to your line. Instead of looking forward, the person is looking sideways. You immediately think that the person is looking at you. In fact, he is looking out at the window next to you.
Feeling cared for, you look back at him. The person then feels watched over by you and takes a reflex to look your way. You and that person then exchange glances or eye contact for a few seconds.
