Why is it so hard to make eye contact when chatting?

Eye contact is one of the most important gestures of communication. But let's be honest, do you ever feel that having to look into someone's eyes when talking is really difficult?

Is it because of shyness, or because of lack of confidence? In fact, both of these elements are only part of the story. Science has proven that basically anyone will feel awkward to look into the eyes of others , because the brain forces us to.

Specifically, this is an idea put forward in a research by Kyoto University (Japan) in 2016. Accordingly, the brain can not actually think about the words to say but still focus on the face. and the eyes of the opposite person.

The experiment was conducted on 26 volunteers. All were required to participate in a word game, while staring at the face that appeared on the computer screen.

The results showed that when trying to look into the eyes, candidates found it difficult to come up with more relevant words.

"Although eyes and language are two independent processes, most of us try to avoid eye contact when talking. This proves there's something between them." - research reports said.

In the experiment, the volunteers were observing faces looking straight and looking away. And when not "eye-to-eye" , they play more effectively, have shorter thought times, but are especially clear with difficult words. According to experts, the longer time could be due to the brain having to process so much information at once.

Talking and looking at each other's eyes is difficult

Of course, making eye contact when communicating can still be done through practice, but this study also shows that human perception can be seen as pooled together, and sometimes the tank. The container can be exhausted when doing too many things at once.

This research is very small, so more evidence will be needed in the future. But even so, this is a very interesting theory about the stress response when making eye contact with others.

In 2015, a study in Italy gave a similar hypothesis. At the time, psychologist Giovanni Caputo did an experiment, showing that just looking into someone's eyes for 10 minutes was enough to cause psychological disturbance. The reason is thought to be due to a process called "neural adaptation" - which occurs when the brain gradually changes its response to a constant hormone over time. For example, if you put your hand on the table and hold it there, then slowly you won't feel like you're actually touching the table anymore.

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