What Are Your Eyes Giving Away?
Your eyes can tell a lot about you and tell others even more simply by the way you use them. Eye communication is a great skill to have and eye contact is a great tool to master. We all use it and we all give away vital clues as to what we are thinking with our eyes.
References are made to our eyes in everyday conversation such as ’she has bedroom eyes’, ‘don’t give me those puppy dog eyes’, ‘giving me the evil eye’ and many more such phrases.
If you can learn the skill of reading eye signals and mastering the art of using eye contact it can make a huge difference in your personal and business life.
The Pupils
Your pupils and the size of them will give away a lot of secrets, and it’s something we can’t do much about. The pupils will either constrict or dilate depending on our state of mind. If we are aroused by something, or someone, our pupils will dilate and if we are turned off by something or someone our pupils will constrict.
Skilled street traders across the world look for the size of the pupils when bartering with their customers. If a customer sees an object and their pupils are fully dilated, then the trader knows they can keep the price of the item at the higher end.
When we are excited by someone we like, our pupils will dilate, and when we are in the company of someone we don’t like, our pupils will constrict.
Take a look at these two photos. Which one do you prefer?
The first photo shows the pupils constricted and the second photo shows the pupils dilated. The one with the pupils dilated would normally be the one that people picked, as it is more seductive and deemed more attractive when the pupils are dilated.
Next time you are talking to someone pay attention to the size of their pupils, don’t go right up to their face and make a nuisance of yourself, but just casually watch the size of their pupils. This will tell you what excites them when they are talking, it might also tell you if they like you or not as we can rarely hide our emotions with our eyes.
Different Types of Eyes
Wandering Eyes
Have you ever noticed when you are talking to someone that their eyes are looking everywhere and not at you. This in itself is an obvious sign of distraction or boredom however, it also means that the person is looking for a way to get out of your space. Looking out a window when someone is talking to you could mean they would rather be outside.
If you do this, be careful of the signals you are giving to the other person, unless you specifically want them to know you don’t want to be with them.
The Angry Eyes
When we are angry our eyes become narrower, brows are furrowed and our pupils constrict. It’s quite easy to tell if someone is angry when they have all of the above. what if they don’t show the above body language signals? Well, we have to look for other body language clues such as constriction of the lips, flared nostrils, staring, clenching of the jaw etc.
When you are speaking to someone who is displaying signs of anger you can either back down or stand up for yourself, depending on what the situation warrants.
If you stand up for yourself you should be holding eye gaze and not break it. This shows the other person that you are not intimidated by them. If you are the one to break eye contact in a heated argument you have all but lost the argument.
The Seductive Eyes
It’s quite easy to tell if someone likes us by the size of their pupils. In a well lit room, if you are speaking to someone face to face you can see the size of the other
person pupils. If the eyes start to dilate they are interested in what you have to say or they find you attractive.
However, this is not so true in a darkened room like a nightclub as the size of our pupils will dilate to let more light in, in order to see better in the darkened room. So be careful to read the signals correctly before making a fool of yourself.
There are other ways to seduce someone with your eyes. The classic Lady Diana look with her head down and eyes looking up was one of the reasons so many people warmed to her. This type of look makes the observer feel more maternal or paternal and also brings out the protector in men which made Lady Di more attractive.
Your Gaze
When we are talking to our friends and in social situations, and are looking and talking with another person for some time we unconsciously gaze at the persons face in a controlled manner. However, if we have lost confidence or we are not yet socially adept we can lose this ability. Here is a quick guide on where to focus your gaze when talking to someone.
Social Gazing
When you are speaking in a social setting you don’t want to stare into someone’s eyes as this is a bit strange for someone to do, and a bit off-putting for the talker. To get over this, use a triangle approach. First look at one eye of the talker, then look at their mouth, briefly, and then move onto their other eye. This shows you are still interested in what they have to say as you have not looked away from their face.
The Flirty Gaze
When we flirt with each other the eyes still move in a triangular way but with more range, downwards. I know the women reading this will have experienced men who think you are talking from your breasts, which is quite disconcerting, and I’ll explain a possible reason for this, apart from the obvious. However, we all do it, men and women, only women are better at it.
It has been shown that when we are walking toward each other from a distance, men and women, automatically check each other from head to foot. First time to check the sex of the person and second time to check the sexiness of the person.
Men are more likely to get caught checking out a females body, rather than looking them in the eye, because they have less peripheral vision than women. Women can look you in the face but still look at your body because their peripheral vision is much better.
Our eyes contain two types of photo-receptors; rods and cones. Rods are responsible for scotopic vision, dark adapted vision. They also predominate the peripheral vision and women have more rods in their eyes than men do; hence why they have better peripheral vision and are better at seeing in the dark.
The Controlling Gaze
If you are looking to intimidate someone when you are talking to them, or are trying to control the conversation look at the area known as ‘the third eye’ which is the spot just between the eyebrows.
Many men do this to try and intimidate the people they are talking to and to try and control a conversation.
Can you tell if someone is lying with their eye movements?
Short answer to that is no. However, by looking at other body language signals and looking at their eyes you can get a good idea if someone is lying or not.
With the work of Bandler and Grinder and their excellent work on NLP we have an idea of how our eye movements relate to how we access information from the brain, which can help to tell is someone is lying or not.
Visual Accessing Cues
(VC) Visual Construction : Looking up and to the left. The person is accessing information from their imagination and might possibly be making it up. For example, if you asked someone what their dream home would look like they would, more than likely, look up and to their left.
If someone is lying about something and making stories up they might be using this eye movement.
(VR) Visual Remembering : Looking up and to the right. This is when we are actually accessing a memory and picturing it in our heads. It is more than likely that this is a memory that actually happened. Ask your friend what they had for dinner yesterday and they will most likely look up and to the right.
(AC) Auditory Construction : Looking middle and to the left. This is where our eyes might go if we were constructing a sound in our mind. For example if you asked a friend to think of what their voice will sound like when they are 80 years old, they would more than likely look in this direction.
(AR) Auditory Remembering : Looking middle and to the right. This is where our eyes might go if you were remembering a sound that you have heard before. For example ask your friend what the sound of their partner sounds like and they will more than likely look in this direction.
(K) Kinesthetic :Looking down and to the left. This is the direction your eyes might go if you were accessing your actual feelings about something. For example, if you ask a friend about their feelings on the issues of capital punishment their eyes might go in this direction.
(AD) Auditory Digital : Looking down and to the right. This is the direction our eyes might go when we are talking to ourselves. We do this all the time and it is called self talk. Believe it or not we talk to ourselves a lot and we can learn a lot about ourselves by paying attention to our self talk, but that is for another article.
The information above represents the majority of people, but it may be different for some. However, it is still possible to work out a persons representational system by observing them when you ask them questions.
Using the information above should get you started on the road to being able to read people using their eyes as signals. Remember, as with all body language signals, that they should be read together and not separately.
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Please leave all your love and comments Leave a Comment
Very interesting. However, does the article refer to “your” right or one’s “own” right? I noticed the illustrations show one looking to their own right, just wanted to make sure this is what was meant.
Most (not all) people will look to their left (your right) when remembering and to their right (your left) when constructing. I like to remember this by thinking most people put the past to the left and the future to the right when drawing a ‘time line’.
Feelings are accessed bottom right – your bottom left and inner dialog to the bottom left (your bottom right) If you see this movement coupled with a movement of the fingers of the hand (often the left hand) this confirms an ‘inner conversation’.
These are general observations and do not apply to all people.
Hope this helps
Buzz, you explained this well. Thanks.
it will be one’s own (the subject) and not yours. hope that helps.
Thanks Nicholas
The images of the subject are looking in the opposite direction of what the article says. This makes it confusing. My pea brain is having a dickens of a time remembering which is which.
Could you edit your article to simply say “their” left or right and match it to the picture of whichever way the model is looking? I think that would eliminate the confusion.
Good article, but people using opiate analgesics eyes are almost always constricted. And those using amphetamines are almost always dilated. This I believe should have been included.
Thanks for your comments. Don’t understand why you say it should have been included, but thanks anyway
Because it’s a variable to reading behavior
Not the most intelligent comments so far. Excellent job on the article and very well explained. Entertaining, interesting and educating. Thanks.
Thanks for that CH, I appreciate your comments and feedback.
I believe this is very accurate, I can learn a lot about myself if I watch myself closely for these eye movements.
Love this article, I found myself actually following the eye movements when thinking/talking to myself. So true indeed.
Excellent summary.
I use this a lot with my life coaching clients, with workshop participants and with people I want to sell to. Works like a charm!
What a wonderful article. It was interesting, educational, and very well written…. just the type of writing I love to read. BTW… I’ll be aying much more attention to my eye movements and those of others. Thanks.
Thank you very much for sharing. There is a quote that says, “Eyes are the mirrors of heart” therefore eyes tells more that you imagine.
Great article… I’ll be going back and looking at some old pictures of myself to see whether I liked the person taking it!!!
Great tips for salesmen too… I’ll be paying close attention from now on.
This is an awesome article. I find myself doing pretty much all of these things, yet I had never really connected it to the idea that others respond the same way.
It’s amazing insight into the human mind, for sure.
That’s funny. I have never known a woman to be able to see in the dark as well as me. Either I am genetically altered or your statement is conjecture.
That’s why I try and keep my eyes closed (hidden) like in poker. You should see the pupils dilate when someone has a royal flush…yeah baby…I sometimes look at porn when somebody upsets me and my pupils dilate some much my eyes are completely black (I have bright green eyes)…Women are sexy (eyes) humanoids.
I loved the article and it left me wanting more on the subject can you provide where one can learn more on this fascinating subject?
I wonder if any of these behaviors change according to cultural differences?
I am compelled to comment as I was just talking to a friend of mine about this very subject. Addressing the opiate and amphetamines comment, I did not find it necessary either to have that subject added to the whole of this particular article.
However, I can understand why someone would want it addressed in such an article. How would one go about understanding a person’s likes or dislikes while engaged in a conversation with someone under the influence of such substances? Perhaps a parent trying to decipher a teenager’s thoughts and secrets, or a partner’s habit could become questionable. One would want to know how to ‘tell’ if the other is under some influence. It’s an interesting question, and can be explored outside of this particular article.
Just as this article was not meant to be a tell all, or a complete and concice deciphering mechanism, we must all take into consideration that there are many situations that could change the dialation of the pupils inspiring to futher our own research.
This article is well thought out in all it’s simplicity.
The photos are not associated with the appropriate passages. Whenever the text says the person is looking left, look at the photo they are actually looking right. And when the text says they are looking right they are actually looking left in the photo. Every photo is like this.
I think this is nifty…however lot’s of other things can cause your eyes to dilate or not. For one light (duh) but also brain damage…not major, but for people who drink or do drugs it can effect they’re pupils.
Very interesting stuff. I would add however that evidence for the NLP concept of eye movement reflecting the specific types of thoughts you’re having is sketchy at best. This varies quite a bit from person to person. Many people will not move their eyes at all when lying.
Just a quick rider to add to the directional issue: these are the usual eye movements in right-handed people. Left-handed folks may use reversed motions or they may use the same directions as right-handed people. This, of course, is one of the reasons it is important to read more cues than just the eyes, as someone has previously stated.
Also, this description refers to the very first flicker of motion in the eye immediately upon hearing the query. The fixed stare which many a liar uses comes after the spontaneous flicker. Yet another reason to use multiple cues, since it can be tough to catch that split-second motion.
Unless im mistaken, this applies to right handed people only.
Leftys brains are wired the other way around so the rules are reversed
Constricted pupils also mean pain. I suffer constant migraines and my pupils are constricted much of the time. It doesn’t mean I don’t like you, it means I am in great pain.
I think it’s funny how the photos were simply flipped to show the eye movement. The model in the lower ones switched ring fingers and bracelet position.
I had read this post previously, and it left me very confused, primarily because the photos are in complete contradiction with the text, in regards to visual accessing. Where it says “Upper Left,” meaning the subject’s Left, the person in the photo is shown looking to their Upper Right, and so on. Scroll up and see what I mean. The comments further muddle the issue. CH’s response validating the input of the comments from Buzz55 (which I believe are correct, as opposed to the text within the article) confuses things further. Here’s why:
LOOKING UP AND TO THE LEFT
From the body of the main article: Looking up and to the left. The person is accessing information from their imagination and might possibly be making it up.
From Buzz55’s comment above: Most (not all) people will look to their left (your right) when remembering and to their right (your left) when constructing. I like to remember this by thinking most people put the past to the left and the future to the right when drawing a ‘time line’. (CORRECT, I believe – D)
LOOKING UP AND TO THE RIGHT:
From the body of the article: Looking up and to the right. This is when we are actually accessing a memory and picturing it in our heads. It is more than likely that this is a memory that actually happened.
From Buzz55’s comment above: Most (not all) people will look to their left (your right) when remembering and to their right (your left) when constructing. I like to remember this by thinking most people put the past to the left and the future to the right when drawing a ‘time line’. (CORRECT, I believe. D)
I think the subject matter is an important one; it would be great if these contradictions could be cleared up so the reader comes away with a clear understanding.
(submitted with respect)
Dude this is really cool stuff. This is kina random but it has to do with eyes; but if you look in the mirror at your eyes they kina look like their breathing. i think its only when your eyes are dilating and constricting but its kina cool to c and kina creeepy. haa
Sounds right….very interesting! I am sure that I will be checking people out at work tomorrow. Thanks for the information
So when they say up and to the left should I be referring to the picture… which would be the way I see them look… or first person?
Great, Now i’m going to be looking at peoples retinas for a week.
I wish you’d clarify what you mean when you say “Look left”. Do you mean our left? Their left? You show a picture of a girl looking to her right and then describe it as her looking to her left when it’s actually my left. WHY?
This article was incredibly interesting. I’ve wrote several articles about how to look good in photos and your perspective on eyes is perfect.
Jay
Very interesting…I never knew eyes could tell you so much about a person.
Justin Wright´s last blog ..The Art of Voluntary Simplicity
NLP is magical thinking. It cracks me up that you have the caveat that direction the eyes are pointing is meaningless, then you fully elaborate on the woo. You could stick to the science-based findings, but I guess the article wouldn’t be that interesting. Oh well, keep that pseudoscience alive, so many careers are based on it, as well as recooping the losses from it.
Thanks for this!
This article should get more recognition
It EASILY gives away women’s true intentions/feelings
We men think women are super complex (which they are), but this article somewhat simplifies their complexity…..
Steve! you’re the man!