New research shows that there is a good scientific reason why some people can’t maintain eye contact while having a conversation. It’s not because we’re awkward or rude, but because our brain can’t handle thinking of the right words and focusing on a person’s face at the same time.
A scientist from Kyoto University has put this theory to the test. He had 26 volunteers playing word association games while looking at computer-generated faces. The participants found it harder to come up with links between words while making eye contact.
“Although eye contact and verbal processing appear independent, people frequently avert their eyes from interlocutors during conversation. This suggests that there is interference between these processes,” write the researchers.
The volunteers were tested while they were looking at the faces, making eye contact and were also asked to think of links between associated words. It took a long period of time for the volunteers to think of words while making eye contact when they were involved with difficult word association. This might be an indication that the brain is handling too much information.
Making eye contact and holding a conversation is possible but this is an evidence that both activities draw on the same pool of cognitive resources.
Giovanni Caputo, Italian psychologist, demonstrated that staring into someone’s eyes for more than 10 minutes induce an altered state of consciousness. This state has been caused by a process named neural adaptation. It’s a condition where our brains slowly alter their response to a not-changing stimulus.
In the meantime, if a person isn’t looking you straight in the eyes while talking don’t rush to think he’s rude. Maybe he just has an overloaded cognitive system.