5 Chapter 5: Oculesics

Corinne has the most beautiful blue eyes – bright and clear. When she was an infant, her mother, Michelle, noticed that she never held eye contact with anyone, not even when taking her bottle. In addition, her eyes darted around the room and she often seemed bewildered. Michelle was told that it wasn’t necessarily abnormal at Corinne’s young age and that everything was surely fine. However, as Corinne reached eighth-months, she still didn’t make eye contact and her eyes would still randomly dart around a room. Michelle was worried, pondering all of the reasons her child wasn’t connecting to her world. She decided to explore the simplest explanation first – eye sight – and she asked her pediatrician for a referral to an ophthalmologist. Sure enough, Corinne’s eyes were not developing normally and she required glasses. It wasn’t that she wasn’t connecting with her world, she could barely see her world.

It was the absence of Corinne’s eye contact that cued Michelle early on that something wasn’t right. We intuitively interpret information from other people’s eye behavior, and when something doesn’t seem right, we try to either figure it out or resolve it. Have you ever tried talking to someone who wouldn’t make eye contact with you? Did you move so that you could see their eyes? Or perhaps stop talking to them altogether? What about growing up – did your parents ever tell you “Look at me when I’m speaking to you”? Chances are the answers are yes to all or most of these questions. As you understand, eye contact when communicating with others is important. Eye contact itself communicates messages about our feelings and thoughts. It invites communication with others and is one of the most fundamental ways to show that we are engaged. Oculesics is the study of eye movement. It includes gaze, blinking behaviors, and pupillary responses.

Eye Behavior Significance and Communication

There is no doubt that we place high value on the eyes. Think of all of the sayings we have that center around eyes and eye behavior. Here are just a few:

• If looks could kill

But take a closer look, most of those phrases don’t actually have anything to do with the eyes. They address attitudes, behavior, and even affection.

What about music? How many songs can you think of with eyes in the lyrics? Perhaps you recognize some of these:

I’ve been watchin’ you for some time
Can’t stop starin’ at those ocean eyes
Burning cities and napalm skies
Fifteen flares inside those ocean eyes
Your ocean eyes… ~

Billie Eilish, 2016

…My brown-eyed girl
And you, my brown-eyed girl ~

Van Morrison, 1967

…You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes
And your smile is a thin disguise
I thought by now you’d realize
There ain’t no way to hide your lyin’ eyes ~

Eagles, 1975

As you already know, and can plainly see, society is preoccupied with the eyes. The eyes play a critical role in communication and even communicate messages on their own.

Gazing and Gaze Behaviors

Gazing and Gaze Behaviors

Eye contact is also known as gazing – looking at someone or something – and two people making simultaneous eye contact is mutual gaze. Most people look at gaze positively (depending on the type of gaze) and it “influences trust, likability, and compliance” (Stanton & Stevens, 2017, pp. 745). Infants will gaze more at eyes and pictures of eyes than they will at objects (Andersen, 2008).  Generally, gaze communicates our emotions, regulates interaction, and indicates the type of interaction we desire from an interactant.

We communicate various emotions with our eyes. There is a popular test online that allows you to check your ability to determine fake from genuine smiles (Fake Smile Test). Take the test, if you haven’t already, and notice what you look at when you are trying to decide whether or not a smile is genuine. If you scored well on the test, it is more than likely because you assessed the eyes and not just the mouth. The mouth does indicate happiness, but it’s the eyes that reveal a true expression of joy. Happiness is not the only emotion that is communicated through the eyes. Some examples of the emotions we communicate with our eyes includes love through soft eyes, fear through wide eyes, boredom through empty eyes, sadness with drooping eyes, and anger with piercing eyes. There are many other emotions communicated through the eyes and face which we’ll take a more in-depth look at in the next chapter.

We also use gaze to show that the communication channel is open or closed to communication. We will hold eye contact with someone as an invitation to speak or when urging them to speak. In turn, most people feel obliged to respond when there is silence and they are being looked at. Have you ever been in class and your professor asked a question? Then looked at you directly. You probably felt obligated to respond. There are also behavioral tendencies between listeners and speakers. Listeners tend to look more at someone who is speaking, and speakers tend to look less when speaking. Speakers will generally make more eye contact when their speech is smooth, than when it is hesitant. Status and power affect gaze as well.  Higher status individuals (perceptually or literally) will give more eye contact when they are speaking and less when they are listening. Whereas lower status (perceptually or literally) will give less eye contact when speaking and more when listening. Additionally, Ho (2015) found that in dyadic interactions, a speaker will hold eye contact when finishing (as if signaling the other person it is their turn) and the listener will avert their gaze as they begin to speak. Last, we close the channel of communication when we avert our gaze, as a listener, and ready for the interaction to end.

When individuals avert their gaze or avoid looking at us we tend to perceive them as being dishonest. Einav and Hood (2008) found that children as young as six interpreted gaze avoidance as a sign of lying and dishonesty. This isn’t always the case, which we will talk about in more detail in Chapter 14. Speakers and listeners will avoid gaze when processing complex ideas (Knapp et al., 2010) and when we are concentrating deeply on something we tend to avert our gaze.

Perceptions of closeness in a relationship can be determined by observing the mutual gaze between individuals – closer relationships tend to have more mutual gaze (Goman, 2017). Married couples in happy relationships tend to look at each more when having a positive interaction or conversation, and less when having a negative interaction or conversation. Happiness in a marriage can’t be measured by frequency of eye contact, though. Researchers have found that individuals who are married for long periods of time have less eye contact with each other, irrespective of happiness, and will often have more eye contact with a stranger (Andersen, 2008).

Even though gaze tends to be positive, there are times and conditions when gaze is threatening and can be used to intimidate. Intense eye contact with someone is perceived by many as a sign of dominance. In business, gaze has been the source of several sexual harassment claims and used as overt discrimination. To address these issues, many companies readily provide training on both sexual harassment and discrimination. Eye contact/ gaze is one of the topics frequently discussed. Subtle discrimination is a type of discrimination that is not as obvious and is more difficult to address. Intentions and feeling are often hidden or disguised in subtle discrimination. Jones at al. (2017) explain that subtle discrimination can be every bit as damaging as touching that is unwelcome or sexist and racist comments. For example, a group of male engineers and one female engineer in a meeting. Everyone, including the supervisor, makes eye contact with everyone except for the female. Discrimination lawsuits have addressed excessive leering and staring, but sometimes the harassment is not making eye contact, as in this type of subtle discrimination.

We infer meaning from the direction of gaze as well. There are three types of gaze related to direction: social, intimate, and power or business. In social gazing we tend to look at the triangle of the eyes to the mouth. This is a friendly gaze, that is brief and non-threatening. In intimate gaze, we use it to communicate desire for intimacy. The gaze is directed from the eyes to mouth or to the body. For some this can be intimidating and has been the source of sexual harassment lawsuits. Last, is power or business gazing. Eye direction in power/ business gazing is focused from the eyes to the forehead and rarely looks at the mouth or below. As power gaze, these looks are used to establish dominance and control. As business gaze they help keep the interaction professionally focused.

There are several myths about eye contact and gaze as well. Years ago, I watched a criminal investigation show and it they claimed their suspect was guilty because they looked to the left before they answered. The claim was that the suspect was lying. However, the assumption that an answer accompanied by a left looking gaze is a lie is a myth. In reality, we look to the right or left, and up or down depending on the part of the brain that we are retrieving the information from and the type of information it is. The following directional cues are from Elston (2019):

• Remembering sounds – side left
• Constructing sounds – side right
• Listening to self-talk – down left
• Accessing touch, taste, smell, feelings – down right
• Remembering images – up left
• Constructing images – up right

Other researchers agree that when individuals calculate a response they look to the right and to when recalling feelings they look to the left.

Blinking

Did you ever play the stare game with your friends when you were little? I did. I was never very good at it because as soon as my eyes began to hurt, I had to blink. Generally speaking, we blink around 15 – 20 times per minute in order to protect and lubricate our eyeballs. We often don’t pay attention to someone’s blinking behavior unless it seems absent or excessive, though. We should be more aware because blinking may reveal a lot of information about someone’s internal state. When someone is uncomfortable or upset, they often blink faster (Sharkov et al., 2022). Some researchers believe that excessive blinking is a sign of anxiety and “psychiatrists report that some [anxious] patients blink up to 100 times per minute” (Knapp et al., pp. 335). When blinking rate decreases it could be a sign that someone is concentrating or attentive to environmental cues (Knapp et al., 2010) or perhaps they are controlling their blinking to conceal information. For example, a poker player who is upset about his/ her cards may mask their feelings by restricting their desire to blink more (Sharkov et al., 2022). Some researchers claim that precise blink frequency is more difficult to discern and depends on the activity of the individual. Cummins (2012) found that blinks are closely related to gaze behaviors and varies greatly between interactants.

Pupil Dilation

Belladonna (beautiful woman in Italian) is a poisonous plant that has been used aesthetically and medicinally since ancient times. In order to make themselves more attractive, women would take belladonna to enlarge their pupils to make them appear more attractive. Dilated pupils don’t only make a person appear more attractive though, it communicates several other bits of information.

Pupil dilation is an uncontrollable physiological response to our internal state (emotional response) and is an often-overlooked social signal (Kret, 2017). Pupil dilation communicates attraction, interest, anxiety, deception, care, interest, and attention. In the 60s, Eckerd Hess studied pupil dilation and attraction. He found that when women looked at images of babies, a mother and a baby, and a partially naked male her pupils dilated. Men’s pupils only dilated when looking at an image of a partially nude female. He was later criticized for his small number of participants, but several researchers have replicated his study and found that there is a correlation between attraction and pupil dilation. Cosme et al. (2021) studied pupil dilation in response to laughs and cries. The researchers created recordings of authentic laughter and acted laughter, as well as authentic cries and acted cries. They had participants listen to the acted stimuli (laughter and cries) first and recorded their pupil dilation. Then they had them listen to the authentic stimuli (laughter and cries). They found that an individual’s pupils dilated more when listening to the acted the laughter and the authentic cries. They reason that the acted laughter creates a higher cognitive effort, causing the pupils to dilate, and the authentic cries create higher emotional arousal, causing the pupils to dilate.

Cultural and Co-cultural Eye Behavior

Culture

Many cultures encourage the suppression of emotions and display rules will vary. Staring is considered rude, prolonged direct eye contact is considered impolite or even intimidating. Japanese individuals make less eye contact than individuals from Western European and North American cultures (Aiken et al., 2007). Japanese also tend to glean more information about the meaning of facial expressions from the eyes and nose area (Adams & Nelson, 2015). Akkilinc (2019) explains that sustained eye contact is viewed as aggressive, unfriendly, and confrontational in many African and Asian cultures. Likewise, African and Asian children tend to avoid eye contact while listening to their parents as a sign of respect for their authority. In the Middle East, eye contact is held longer and more intently compared to Western countries. However, sustained eye contact between men and women in some parts of the Middle East is seen as inappropriate. In Saudi Arabia, direct eye contact between men and women is viewed negatively (Missaoui, 2015). Akkilinc (2019) advises to be careful with eye contact when in Africa or countries such as Thailand or Korea and to be most careful in the Far Eastern regions.

Winking behaviors vary among cultures as well. Winking is considered “impolite in Hong Kong, Tunisia, and Bangladesh. And winking at the opposite sex is vulgar in Nepal, Paraguay… among other countries. Winking at children in Nigeria tells them it is time to leave the room”. Whereas in the U.S., a wink between two people can mean many different things…” (Zhi-peng, 2014, pp. 1032).

Gender

Women smile and gaze more than men (Hall et al., 2001); they tend to look at the eyes more than men as well, which helps them recognize faces faster and more accurately (Adams & Nelson, 2015). Women with PTSD from childhood abuse are negatively affected by gaze. Instead of the typical processing of social information from gaze, in these individuals it activates the brain’s alarm system (Mitzkovitz et al., 2022). Rett syndrome is a rare genetic neurological disorder that affects mostly girls and “causes a progressive loss of motor skills and language (Mayo Clinic, 2022). Urbanowicz et al. (2015) compared gestures and eye gaze in girls and women with Rett syndrome. They found that they communicated more with their gaze than they did with gestures.

Sexual Orientation

Knofler and Imhof (2007) found that gay individuals didn’t gaze as long or as frequent as heterosexual individuals. Eye contact was established several years ago as an important means by which gay men and lesbians identify one another (Carrol & Gilroy, 2002; Nichols, 2004; Shelp, 2002); however, this research is old and should be replicated to determine if it is still true today. A more recent study looked at sexual arousal, sexual orientation, and pupil dilation. Rieger and Savin-Williams (2012) had participants view sexually erotic materials. They then measured and compared the pupil size of gay men and women and heterosexual men and women. They found that substantial dilation to both sexes was most common in bi-sexual men, heterosexual men with their preferred sex, and gay men and women with their preferred sex. Heterosexual women, however, had similar pupillary responses to images of both sexes. The inference is that heterosexual women are sexually aroused in a different manner than men and their lesbian counterpart.

Summary

Oculesics is the part of kinesics that studies eye movement. There are several areas in the study of oculesics: gaze, blinking, and pupil dilation. Gaze, and mutual gaze, impart important culturally specific information about the communicator and the interaction. Gaze is used to regulate communication. It is also used to indicate interest and perhaps even intimidate. Gaze is a central issue in subtle discrimination and should be used carefully in some cultures. Blinking is a way to gauge concentration, but it also communicates our comfort level. Last, dilated pupils is a physiological response that we cannot control (unless we control the emerging emotional state). Our pupils dilate when we are interested in something, attracted to something, trying to deceive, or when we sense care, and attention. It is clear that the eyes are truly the window to one’s soul.

References

Adams, R. B., & Nelson, A. J. (2015). Eye behavior and gaze. APA Handbook of Nonverbal Communication., 335–362. https://doi.org/10.1037/14669-013

Akechi, H., Senju, A., Uibo, H., Kikuchi, Y., Hasegawa, T., & Hietanen, J. K. (2013). Attention to Eye Contact in the West and East: Autonomic Responses and Evaluative Ratings. PLoS ONE, 8(3). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0059312

Akkilinc, F. (2019). The Body Language of Culture. International Journal for Innovation Education and Research, 7(8), 31–39.

Einav, S., & Hood, B. M. (2008). Tell-Tale Eyes: Children’s Attribution of Gaze Aversion as a Lying Cue. Developmental Psychology, 44(6), 1655–1667. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013299

Elston, T. (2019, August 13). NLP Coaching – Eye Patterns. NLP World. https://www.nlpworld.co.uk/nlp-coaching-eye-patterns/

Jones, K. P., Arena, D. F., Nittrouer, C. L., Alonso, N. M., & Lindsey, A. P. (2017). Subtle Discrimination in the Workplace: A Vicious Cycle. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 10(1), 51–76. https://doi.org/10.1017/iop.2016.91

Knapp, M.L. & Hall, J.A. (2010). Nonverbal Communication in Human Interaction. Wadsworth: Cengage.

Mitzkovitz, C., Dowd, S. M., Cothran, T., & Musil, S. (2022). The Eyes Have It: Psychotherapy in the Era of Masks. Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings, 29(4), 886–897. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10880-022-09856-x

Rett syndrome: Symptoms and causes. (2022, November 16). Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/rett-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20377227

Sharkov, F. I., Silkin, V. V., & Kireeva, O. F. (2022). Non-verbal signs of personality: Communicative meanings of facial expressions. RUDN Journal of Sociology, 22(2), 387–403. https://doi.org/10.22363/2313-2272-2022-22-2-387-403

Stanton, C. J., & Stevens, C. J. (2017). Don’t Stare at Me: The Impact of a Humanoid Robot’s     Gaze upon Trust During a Cooperative Human–Robot Visual Task. International Journal of Social Robotics, 9(5), 745–753. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12369-017-0422-y

Zhi-peng, R. (2014). Body Language in Different Cultures. US-China Foreign Language, 12(12), 1029–1033. https://doi.org/10.17265/1539-8080/2014.12.008