hard to maintain eye contact when you're talking to someone

 

Why do you glance off to the side when you speak? It's like you're trying to pull a word out of some blank space in the distance.
Breaking eye contact mid-sentence is a strange habit, but almost everyone seems to do it every once in a while.
And a pair of researchers at Kyoto University in Japan offer an intriguing answer as to why in a new study, which will be published in the journal Cognition.
They suggest that maintaining eye contact requires a level of mental effort and uses up your brain's resources.
So sometimes, when you speak, the tasks of coming up with the next word and maintaining eye contact become too much for your brain to handle. Then — snap — your attention shifts to the middle distance, and all the extra oomph in your head goes toward picking your next word.
Here's how the researchers came to their conclusions.
We know from a previous study that different word-associations are more or less hard to come up with. And there's different reasons you might take time to come up with a word.
Some word association tasks are hard because there are too many options. That means the mechanism in your mind for picking a word has to run longer, but it doesn't tax your conscious thought.
For example: Try to come up with a verb for the word scissors.
Now come up with a verb for the word ball.
Typically people think of a word faster for scissors, because there's only really one good option: cut.
But if you have a ball you can kick it, throw it, catch it, or play with it.
And then there are the word associations that don't overwhelm you with choice anxiety, but have weak enough connections that you have to consciously think about them to pick a verb.
So if you're given the word car, it's not too hard to get to drive, so you probably don't have to think about it. But if the word is leaf, you might have to mull it over a bit before getting to fall.
MIT Press
For the eye contact study, the researchers had 26 participants play the word association game while making eye contact with a computer-generated face.
They found that eye contact did make it harder to think of words, so the participants would take longer to think of them. But the effect was only significant when trying to make weak connections, like that between leaf and fall ;— the sort that require conscious thought to come up with.
That means eye contact doesn't directly interfere with the mental task of picking words. But it takes some cognitive effort to maintain. So when you're speaking and you come to a word you have to actively think to come up with, the two tasks come into conflict.
And then, perhaps, you might glance away.

A person who doesn’t look others in the eye while talking is often perceived as lying, bored, awkward, or lacking in confidence, but two researchers from Kyoto University in Japan suggest something else may be going on. A new study in Cognition says eye contact and verbal processing “share cognitive resources,” so doing both at the same time puts a lot of demand on the brain.
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The verbal processing includes both retrieving and selecting words from one’s vocabulary, and the researchers tested these functions during different amounts of eye contact. Participants looked at faces — some with their eyes directed toward them and others with their eyes averted — while playing a word association game. The 26 people had to say words that immediately came to them after seeing other words of varying difficulty, judged based on the number of possible responses to choose from, and the researchers noted how long it took them to answer and how much they broke eye contact.
If you have a hard time looking someone in the eye while talking, it could be your brain trying to protect itself. Image courtesy of Pixabay, public domain
The study says responses on the more difficult words were slower if eye contact was maintained. Keeping that eye contact while searching for a word, it suggests, puts too much demand on the brain.
“Most everyone knows that maintaining eye contact with another person while speaking can sometimes be difficult — at times, the urge to look away becomes overwhelming,” according to a press release about the findings. Sometimes when this occurs “we are trying to keep our brains from overloading” by focusing entirely on just the verbal processing.
The researchers say the results show that fully understanding communication requires understanding how nonverbal “channels” can interfere and interact with the verbal.
Source: Kajimura S, Nomura M. When we cannot speak: Eye contact disrupts resources available to cognitive control processes during verb generation. Cognition. 2016.

The old saying that “eyes are a reflection of your inner self” holds true in most cases. There are a lot of meanings to eye contact. It can be a glaring look when a person is defiant or angry. A stare when we see something unusual about the person (staring obtrusively is rude!). A glazed over look when we are hopelessly in love with the person. It can also be a direct look when we are talking and trying to make a point.
What our eyes mean in communication
In all instances we use our eyes as a level of communication with the other person. We also avoid a direct look from another person if we have something to hide. The police use it as a means to detect if the person is telling the truth or not. So unless you are a very accomplished liar in most cases you will feel uneasy when you lie! Also sometimes a person feels uncomfortable looking another person in the eye due to shyness. This trait is also present with other signs of shyness such as a slight stammer and sometimes blushing. Otherwise it could just be that the person has a short attention span for anything you have to say.
Eye contact in events
Our eyes also reflect our sincerity, integrity and comfort when communicating with another person. Which is why having good eye contact while conversing is the indication that the communication has gone on well. How is eye contact related to events? Well, events are a form and means of communication, be it to send out a message, to educate or even to introduce. A good event management company will realize that eye contact during communication and speech are important.
Take for instance a presentation event where you have a speaker and an audience. One of the main items of importance during event planning will be the camera and projection screen. Another item of importance is the cameraman. One point to note is that you can obtain a good event management app to manage your checklist for all these items. Notice how during the presentation the cameraman will focus on the face of the speaker. On cue when the speaker makes a point, the cameraman will focus on the speaker’s eyes. This is to establish a contact between speaker and audience through the big screen so that the audience can feel a connection between the speaker and his or her audience. When you notice this in any presentation that you go to, make sure to take note of the event solution company and the cameraman! They have their act well rehearsed!
Eyes and the body language
Eye contact is a form of body language which is important during communication. How we present ourselves and communicate with others aside from talking is by our body language. Our body language speaks more than words which then logically accounts for a bigger percentage of our communication skills. Therefore our eyes speaks volumes about us and how we communicate.
Some points to remember while communicating and why eye contact is important are:

• Surprise! Eye contact is a sign that you happen to be a good listener! Now what has the eye got to do with listening? When you keep eye contact with the person you are talking to it indicates that you are focused and paying attention. It means that you are actually listening to what the person has to say. That is where the saying “Don’t just listen with your ears” comes from. So “listen” more than talk, everyone loves a good listener especially the opposite gender!
• Your eyes are a way of building a connection with the other person. This could mean you like that person. You feel comfortable talking and communicating with the person or you just are plain falling in love with the person! Either way, the eyes say it all.
• Avoiding eye contact could also mean that you do not want the person you are speaking with to know too much. It could be that you may not like the person. You do not want the person to know you like them or you do not feel comfortable with that person. These are the negative impacts of avoiding eye contact. Sometimes the other person might read it wrongly and therefore produce a negative feeling towards you as well.
• A big part of eye contact is building trust. A person with whom you are talking to will be more likely to trust and respect you as eye contact indicates an openness in communication. It also tells the other person “Hey, I am confident and self-assured, you can trust me”. So if you hope to land that big contract or project, be trust-worthy!

Practising good eye contact is a skill for effective and vital communication and is mostly under-rated and under-utilized. Keeping eye contact with the person you are talking to indicates interest and saying to the person “You are important and I am listening”. It is one of the “unseen” tools used in any event communication. An event management solution provided by Evenesis Dotcom will enable you to generate a survey and report based on your recent event. One of the questions you can post is how effective was your presentation. Did the presenter keep eye contact with the audience? Results of your survey will be useful in hosting future presentations events.
A great event management system should also be flexible enough for you to be mobile while you are busy organizing the event. Now we carry all sorts of mobile devices. An application that can be accessed from your mobile phone is a great way to keep in contact with your team. Evenesis applications are not just limited to event Malaysia but from any where in the world. So no matter where you are organizing an event, you can use your iPhone 3G mobile and the event solution to keep an “eye” on your team!