Talk:Eye contact

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This article is currently the subject of an educational assignment.

Comments

Added attention notice for the following reasons:

Needs serious reorganisation: Specifically, The Trivia & Miscellaneous is too trivial and too miscellaneous, the Spiritual and the Biological may be better as two discrete sections, and the entire page is lacking "flow".
Needs to cite sources: Lines like "Scientific experiments have been done" are unencyclopedic, and much of the article can benefit from some citations. ClockworkTroll 13:16, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This page does need lots of work. I'll give it a push by eliminating the "scientific experiments" paragraph that the two others here have mentioned previously. The various comments regarding emotions associated with eye contact may not fully reflect a NPOV. Much of what has been written is simply a culture-biased perception, evidenced by the fact that staring in some countries (e.g. China) is not considered to be rude. AED 08:20, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

THIS ARTICLE NEEDS TO BE WRITTEN BY A SCIENTIST, NOT A HOBBYIST (to improve cohesion, basic facts, neutrality and ENGLISH). This is an extremely ineloquent and biased article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.94.6.28 (talk) 01:52, 19 October 2006‎

Please, assume good faith and avoid name-calling.Emmett5 03:59, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What scientific experiments?

The author(s) mentions "scientific experiments" regarding the subject, but no dates, names, or URLs are given. Does anyone know what experiments this article could be refering to? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cog05 (talk • contribs) 23:56, 31 March 2005 (UTC).[reply]

Possibly Useful Articles on Eye Contact

-Devin 20:26, 15 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

[2] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.81.44.54 (talk) 17:36, 27 April 2006

Yo yo yo, some info on eye contact (in the context of flirting) here: http://www.sirc.org/publik/flirt.html Might clear some issues up.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.141.64.28 (talk • contribs) 18:15, 14 April 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Should We Insist on Eye Contact with People who have Autism Spectrum Disorders, IRCA Articles, Access Autism

-- Wavelength (talk) 17:28, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Plagiarism

Chunks of this appear to have been lifted word for word from the Nonverbal Dictionary http://members.aol.com/nonverbal3/eyecon.htm. In the section "Intimidation and Status" from "rarely" onwards exactly matches Usage section in nonverbal disctionary. Section on "Instinctive behavior" is lifted from Primatology I in Nonverbal Dictionary with very minor editing (mostly to erronously distinguish us from primates). On a side note the dictionary is fully referenced so it could be used to source citations for this article.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.81.44.54 (talk • contribs) 17:36, 27 April 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Thanks for the note. I reviewed that link and removed all the text from this article that was copied from it. -AED 05:01, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

article name change to :"Human eye contact"

I suggest this Since it clearly talks of nothing else but the phsycological implications of such an act. --Procrastinating@^talk2me 21:39, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Give that there can be eye contact between non-human species, or between humans and non-human species, I would leave it alone. -AED 22:57, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

of course there is, there's probably even between different species.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 161.76.99.106 (talk • contribs) 00:59, 23 May 2006 (UTC).[reply]

Certainly between untrained dogs and in animal-human interactions, direct eye contact is always interpreted as aggression. It might be useful to find a verifiable citation on this and include it. It is potentially life-saving hint- Looking a wild animal or strange dog directly in the eye will be perceived as by them as a threat. Cuvtixo 18:47, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Animal behavior

Someone just added a short paragraph about animal behavior. This takes care of the worries about whether the article should be renamed "Human eye contact", but it raises other concerns. I tagged both sentences in the new paragraph with {{fact}} but just supplying references won't be enough. There are so many animals on the planet, it seems cheap to just refer to only two purposes for eye contact - it must be a fairly complex subject. Humans use eye contact for not only those two reasons, but many others. Also, I wonder why we are talking only about primatologists. Dogs and cats use eye contact, and primatologists are not concerned with such species. Cbdorsett 07:32, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently the animal behavior section has been deleted. It is not really complex subject and its not "cheap" to refer to the only two purposes- especially if little/no published research has been done. Humans are a very unique in certain behaviors, and it may be subtleties of eye contact are as unique as spoken communicative language. Dogs and cats can be trained to make eye contact, but this controversial and the effects are not well understood. Looking an unfamiliar dog, or bear or any other animal in the eyes is very dangerous. In fact looking people in the eye in unfamiliar cultures is also inadviseable Cuvtixo 18:58, 13 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Variations in Eye Contact

There really ought to be a little addendum on how different neurological disorders can affect eye contact from person to person, for the sake of being thorough. The link to WrongPlanet is a good start, but there needs to be something in the article that pertains to the link for the link to make any sort of sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cellogirl42 (talk • contribs) 23:05, 7 August 2007‎

Autistic Children and their Difficulty with eye contact

This entire section is without any citations or supportive evidence. It really needs some. Bluebec (talk) 01:27, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the section suggesting that lack of eye contact is an early sign of autism in 3 week olds- the citation was poor and it is not a claim that can be backed up by research. I will see if I can add more pertinent information about eye contact and autism (I believe there was a study suggesting eye contact as an early diagnostic tool in older infants/toddlers). CelticLabyrinth (talk) 07:02, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good removal. The source actually did not claim at all that eye contact in 3 week olds is an early sign of autism. Lova Falk talk 10:11, 9 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This may sound like an incredibly stupid question

What is it called when your eyeballs actually touch? ✍ (talk) 03:40, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Because the eyeball is usually contained within the eye socket and shielded by the eyelid, I'm guessing that it's usually called "impossible".--99.251.239.89 (talk) 01:07, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not impossible... it's actually kinda fun and oh... where did I learn this? Conan o'brien touched eyeballs with one of his guests... it was awesome. I don't know the name for it though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.220.248.100 (talk) 16:30, 8 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lucas Da Silva Alexandre?

What is the relevance of this line?: "Lucas Da Silva Alexandre was the first to fully understand how to master eye contact."

No citation or explanation of any kind. Delete? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.161.254.85 (talk) 12:23, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Which eye? The nose? Forehead? Mouth?

As someone who is not good with eye contact, I need to know where people look at each other when "in" eye contact. Since we tend to focus on a single point, it is hard to look into both of someone's eyes at the same time, so it would appear that people are really looking at a single point on the face. Possible options:

left eye of other person
right eye of other person
left eyebrow of other person
right eyebrow of other person
bridge of nose of other person
point between eyebrows of other person
tip of nose of other person

In close proximity I would assume people are looking at the bridge of the nose, or one of the eyes. DMahalko (talk) 22:43, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I was wondering the very same thing! What is eye contact, specifically? I polled over 500 people,^[1] and 2/3rds said it was alternating between eyes, while 1/3rd said it was looking between their eyes, which were the only two options I'd accounted for. Some people told me it was something else entirely, such as looking at just one eye (some specifying the "dominant" eye), or going slightly bosseyed to look between their eyes or look at both at once. And all this time I'd assumed it meant looking between people's eyes. So maybe some clarification about what eye contact actually is would be useful. ZoeB (talk) 08:44, 23 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ @zoeblade (May 22, 2022). "What does "looking someone in the eyes" mean? Where are you looking when you do that?" (Tweet) – via Twitter.

Lying

In many western cultures, avoiding eye contact is often seen as evidence that someone is lying. Is this actually true? If it is, shouldn't it be in the article? If it isn't, shouldn't the fact it's believed to be true be in the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.6.96.22 (talk) 17:58, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Conclusion section

I have removed the "conclusion" section. No encyclopedic article can have really have a "conclusion" on its subject; this is not a research paper or a dissertation, which give opinions. However, I did not delete the contents, but only moved them to other sections. Davidmjeong926 (talk) 14:47, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Educational assignment

I have decided to edit this article for Psych 2410A at King's University College 2012 Eedmiston (talk) 21:14, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've reworded your addition to be specific to the study. - M0rphzone (talk) 22:58, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Cops

What gives police officers away in a roomful of people is their habit of looking too intently and too carefully at others (Joe Navarro, FBI special agent, personal communication, August 2001). 176.228.51.29 (talk) 06:09, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

[1] @zoeblade (May 22, 2022). "What does "looking someone in the eyes" mean? Where are you looking when you do that?" (Tweet) – via Twitter.

[1]