Brain Activity Prompts Some To Avoid Eye Contact Or To Kick Off Interaction

Your innate ability to build new friendships depends mostly on your personality reports a study published in the Journal Neuropsychologia. Neuroticism, the element, which determines personality related to anxiety and self-consciousness was used as an assessment tool. The findings showed that those who scored less are more likely to respond to eye contact.

On the other hand, those who are more anxious and self-conscious may find eye contacts discomforting and may even experience high levels of anxiety when they are the focus of someone’s gaze.

"We conducted an experiment where the participants’ electrical brain activity was recorded while they were looking at another person who was either making eye contact or had a gaze averted to the side," said researcher Helen Uusberg from the University of Tartu in Estonia.

"Our findings indicate that people do not only feel different when they are the center of attention but that their brain reactions also differ," said Jari Hietanen, Corresponding author from the University of Tampere in Finland.

Though eye contact plays a crucial role for an initiate interaction, for some it triggers avoidance. "For others, the effect of eye contact may decrease this likelihood," Hietanen added. If people look each other in the eye, they automatically send a signal that their attention is focused on the other person.

The results showed that personality does indeed modulate the way one’s brain reacts to attention from another individual.

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Source-Medindia