We Can Sense When Somebody Is Looking At Us Even If We Don’t See Them
Have you ever had the feeling that someone was literally boring holes into the back of your head with their stare? Its like a prickly feeling on the back of your neck, almost like getting goosebumps or having a chill run down your spine. Some people say that that’s simply narcissistic paranoia and nothing else. However, that may not actually be the case. We, as humans, seem to have the capacity to sense when someone is staring at us even if we cannot see them with our own two eyes.
The reason we are able to sense when someone else is staring at us even if we can’t seem them is because there is a special system in our brains that is literally devoted to detecting where those around us are looking; especially at us. This system, aptly called the “gaze detection” system, was recorded as activating specific brain cells only when people look at you, different ones when they look near you, and others for when they are not looking at you but at someone else. As such, it would seem that our brains catalog and characterize different gazes. But why is this so important that it would have a special system within it devoted to knowing about something as small as a gaze?
When you think about it, it actually makes a lot of sense. For survival purposes it would make sense that you would want to know if and when someone or something (like a predator) was looking at you. Furthermore, eye contact is a very important factor in the way in which we communicate with each other. We give a lot of stuff away through our eyes, things like social cues and emotions. As such it isn’t really surprising how much importance we put into glances and being able to notice such things. But perhaps there are other reasons that this could be. What do you guys think? Food for thought.
-Cassey
SOURCES
http://www.ted.com/conversations/9350/can_we_ever_know_how_another_p.html
http://www.csicop.org/si/show/can_we_tell_when_someone_is_staring_at_us/
Edited by Ranine Swaid.
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