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Eye Contact:  Problems and Analysis of Cause

Eye contact is a simple matter for most people.  Neurologically it is very complex.  Socially it is complex:  there are eye contact rules that most people cannot quickly define.  There are cultural differences.  A woman may want more from her man.   Men and women become perplexed with each other and miss some of the reasons why.  Autistic children have had their faces grabbed and have been scolded over and over, “Look at me!”   Why?

I am going to explore the causes of the problems with eye contact.  I am going to use facts and speculations.  This is the outline I will follow:

I.  Social:

II.  Neurological.  Why it is difficult for some people.

III.  Educational.  Why one method has been tried.

I.  Social:

Socially eye contact is very important.  There are many reasons why it is important.  It is important to show that you are listening and are following what someone is saying.  It is important to show you are “relating”.  It is important to be able to follow the messages in the eyes and face.  It is a lot more fun when a listener can get in synch with a good story, capturing all the action, capturing all the eye signals for timing in a good joke.

Socially eye contact is also not very important.  Not important?  Why not?  I have managed to have a good social life without eye contact.  I had a virus blow out a few wires in my head and lost the ability to make eye contact.  Even without eye contact, though I can read plain text okay, I easily get on visual overload and can have difficulty with visual processing and comprehension.  Through the years I have been able to regain a very very limited ability with eye contact and I have learned why it is possible to liked and to have a social life without eye contact.  There are many reasons why a person can be like and eye contact is only one of them. 

In social situations I can hear okay if I close my eyes.  Just as my PC bombs and does a memory dump when I try to scan and do any multi-tasking, I do a memory dump in my head.  My PC cannot do voice recognition at the same time it is scanning and neither can I.  My screen goes on the fritz and then my eyes roll up and close.  If I force it too much I need to shut down and reboot.  It is more efficient for me to  listen only, to glance now and then at the other person’s countenance, just their form, and to really follow their words and thoughts.

One of the first questions I found myself with, when I began to go back out into the world without eye contact, was why eye contact was so important to some and not to others.  Some people would hardly notice and even looked away themselves much of the time while they are talking.  Most of course were in the middle of the bell curve.  Then there were those who got easily upset; would even scold me and say, “You’re Not listening!”  I wondered why it was so unsettling for some and an insignificant issue for others.   I knew if I could figure out why it would help me deal with them.  Most people have a hard time talking about it when asked directly.  A few said they did not like to talk on the phone either.  I noticed that eye contact is often more important with those who attach a lot of social and emotional and status meaning to it.  It is also more important to people who are highly visual and less good at auditory processing.  The people who are bothered by it less often seem more pragmatic to me, seem to do more thinking when they talk, and may even be more visually observant of how things work together

Understanding eye contact is also important in cultural and gender differences.  Asian cultures use less eye contact.  One Asian man told me that he considered an excess of eye and facial expression to be associated with being less refined and less educated.  I do very well with Asian people and find their faces to me more serene.

Gender differences are fun to explore and important to think about.  Why these differences exist and why they hold emotional associations may be a good reason why more people would benefit from knowing what the differences are.  Almost every book I read that mentioned eye contact especially noted these gender differences.  Samples of books on non-verbal communication, eye contact, and gender differences are noted below in the works I cite with an *. 

A common belief is that eye contact is a genuine indicator of honesty, caring and interest.  “Words lie, facial expressions deceive, but the language of the eyes does not lend itself to falsehood. The eyes speak mutely, but they speak truly.”  That phrase was the last line in a website titled, “Eye Contact”.  Yet another pop site, “The Importance Of Eye Contact”, indicates that sincerity and interest can be faked by eye contact.               

They say the eyes are mirrors to the soul. And you can use the power of eye contact to seduce and attract single women with your eyes by simply following the simple guidelines listed below.
. . .  You could also gaze deeply into her eyes while talking to her to make your words seem that much more personal.
To show that you agree with her occasionally raise and lower your eyebrows. The beauty about using eye contact is that even though you are not paying attention, you will see [sic] like you are listening and hanging on to her every word.

Communication is of course possible without eye contact.  I got two good paying jobs without making eye contact during the interviews.  The first one I was hired because I was the only one who wrote a thank-you note.  The second one was because as the questions got harder and harder and harder I kept answering them.  We know that good communication is possible without eye contact because on the phone or in written communication we can still exchange complex ideas, information, and feelings.  In two ways I am even at an advantage:  I can remember more details in words and I can listen at a deeper level.  E-mail is a snap for me and I have more cyber-friends than I can keep track of. 

II.  Neurological. 

Why eye contact is difficult for some people.

I will give a glimpse of the NeuroPhysiological complexities to show why eye contact is not a simple matter.  Eyes are controlled by complex muscle groups around the eye.  Each eye is an extension of the brain and is connected by direct and by cross-connections to each half of the brain.  Complex multi-tasking is needed to select and filter visual input.  Then the visual information must be processed and then comprehended.  A system that has a problem anywhere along the line can easily be overloaded with a backlog of unprocessed bewildering information.

In the opening lines of a website titled  “Vision, Navigation, Mobility and the Brain” it states that at least 50% of the brain is involved with vision.  The brainstem handles ongoing multi-tasking.  Among other life functions your brainstem is sorting and prioritizing and filtering all of the information coming in from all of your senses and at the same time coordinating postural apparatus and helping you process and plan for what comes next.  An ideally working brainstem helps filter background noises and also filters and selects specific visual areas of focus.

An article titled “The Cerebellum” reports that

When the cerebellum is damaged (or its pathways disrupted) then subconscious, automatic movements are reduced or lost. This means that children with reduced cerebellar function must will actions. They must use higher cognitive areas and voluntarily command their muscles to perform functions. This is obviously an inefficient and exhausting task. . . .

I noticed something else about the use of vision in physically impaired children. . .  The eyes of these kids seemed to drift all over the place. I had to repeatedly ask them to look at me or an object, which they seemed fleetingly able to do. I now realize that when asked to voluntarily direct their eyes they can do so.  It is hard and exhausting, but they can do it.

Even gaze control is not a simple thing.  One can see why it is complex when they see that it takes a $207  book, titled Information Processing Underlying Gaze Control to explain gaze control.  Even the 335 word Table of Contents is awesome.  It is beyond my comprehension.  To understand gaze control one would need to study things like the “Physiology of Extraocular Motor Nuclei”,  the “Segregation of retinal and visual cortex projections to the pretectum”, and “First steps in an electrophysiological ‘input-output’ approach of the horizontal operational unit of the flocculus.”

To know further why eye contact with a live person is difficult one must remember that the movement component should be included.  A face does not hold still like the pictures I put in my PC’s scanner:  a face tilts and turns while talking.  On a moving face lips are curving, and going out and in, and eyes, eyelids and surrounding tissues are flowing in patterns to express emotions, and eyebrows are underlining certain words for emphasis.  So it is more than just gaze control, more than just a $207 book.  For gaze stabilization with motion we can turn to the $304 book, Visual Motion and Its Role in the Stabilization of Gaze (Reviews of Oculomotor Research, Vol. 5).  This book adds to why I say eye contact is not a simple matter.  One can see by the book’s Table of Contents that the subject involves things like “Decoding Optic Flow”, “Subcortical Analysis of Visual Motion”, and “Subcortical Optokinetic Mechanisms”.

There are two specialties to help document why one may have visual problems caused by something other than the eyeball:  (1) Neuro-Ophthalmology and (2) Vision Therapy and Developmental Optometry.  I have had my challenges documented by both.  I began understanding why I had the problem though before I saw them.  One of my physical therapists taught me about a treatment called Feldenkrais.  The practitioner helped me perceive the extra attention I needed to be able to move my eyes independently from my neck and head.  Even that is only one component in vision.

I have heard of two other programs that tell why people’s eyes do or do not move as expected.  I have not yet researched them enough to comment.  One is Neuro-Linguistic Programming and another I honestly cannot remember the name of, however it has to do with a method that just a few Psychologists use for post-traumatic disorders.

III. Educational.

 Why one method has been tried.In the past I have personally seen teachers for the autistic become rather unladylike and grab the faces of little boys and command, “Look at me!”. I contacted a few places that did not want to comment even though I thought I was asking in a non-threatening way.  This last week I had an interview with an Occupational Therapist and another interview with a teacher who is credentialed in Special Education.  I have also been corresponding by e-mail with another professional person who works in special education and who has a condition almost the same as mine.  I initially wanted to know if this method was still used.  The answer, a partial “no”, came with many other issues that flowed out we talked.

What I am finding is that the reason people used to be more severe on autistic children was that they were less educated and less experienced.  All three were aware of some very unkind things that have been done to autistic children.  The teacher said that a few times in the past she had gently prompted an autistic child on the face to get them to make eye contact, then added, “but it Just -- Doesn’t -- Work.”  [Many autistic are overly sensitive on their faces and it is painful for them to be touched on the face.]

Both of the other two I talked to this week said they already knew that moving the face in the right direction was not how to get to square one for social interaction.

I have been very pleased to find that the old method of restraining a persons face while repeating the words, “Look at me” is not used as much any more.  I say why do that when their senses are already on overload.  It may have been tried out of frustration and it may have been tried to have “bonding” although I would surely not prefer to bond with someone who did that to me.  It is easier for me to make eye contact if they do the opposite;  back off and calm down.

My visual processing and comprehension has slowly made just a little bit of improvement.  It has taken ten years and a lot of my own money.  Even being able to capture little samples of what I am missing is fun and helpful.  My appreciation of it exceeds that of most  who have it come natural to them.  I have been able to do this because of the Feldenkrais method and through repetitious practice with technical computer graphics.  [My next paper will give a source for Feldenkrais.]

I hope that more people will discover the wonders of eye contact so that they can see how precious it is.  Life and love can still happen without it and hopefully through understanding no more little children will have their faces restrained while struggling to obey, “Look at me!”

Works Cited

“Eye Contact”, no author named.  March 24, 2000  http://www.base.com/shy/hmw/HMW4C.HTM

“The Importance Of Eye Contact”, no author named, under a group of web pages called the “Dating Guide” by Adolescent Adulthood Consultations Inc.  March 24, 2000   http://www.adolescentadulthood.com/dating-guide/dating-eyecontact.shtml

*Elgin, Suzette Haden, The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense for Business Success.  Paramus, New Jersey:   Prentice Hall, 1989.

*Elsa, Janet. G, The Four-Minute Sell.  New York:  Simon and Schuster.  1984.

*Griffin, E. M.,  A First Look at Communication Theory.  New York:  McGraw Hill.  1994.

“Vision, Navigation, Mobility and the Brain”, no author named.  March 24, 2000 http://isd.saginaw.k12.mi.us/~mobility/visbrain.htm

J.M. Delgado-Garcia, E. Godaux, P.P. Vidal (Editor), Information Processing Underlying Gaze Control.  Oxford, UK:  Pergamon Press.  1994.

F.A. Miles, J. Wallman (Editor),  Visual Motion and Its Role in the Stabilization of Gaze (Reviews of Oculomotor Research, Vol. 5).  New York:  Elsevier Science Ltd.  1992. Website at http://www.elsevier.nl/

“The Cerebellum”, no author named.  March 24, 2000  http://isd.saginaw.k12.mi.us/~mobility/visbrain.htm

*Marsh, Peter, Eye to Eye, How People Interact.  Topsfield, Massachusetts:  Salem House Publishers, 1988.

*Books that mention gender differences.

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