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Eye Position May Say More Than We Thought About Decision-making

Dr. Patricia Farrell
2 min readSep 7, 2023

If the eyes are the mirrors of the soul, they may also hold the key to how we make decisions, according to research.

Photo by Marina Vitale on Unsplash

Our eyes and their position while reading, thinking, or interacting with someone else may reveal more than we realize. Just as our eyes’ pupils reflect our emotions or attention, how we move our eyes may have a role in revealing aspects of our mental lives.

Eye location provides information about mental processing, attention, decision-making, and cognitive load. According to research in this field, our gaze patterns convey significantly more about our thoughts and intentions than we previously imagined. As technology progresses, additional studies into eye tracking and its implications for psychology and cognitive science will certainly offer even more exciting results.

Our understanding of human mental processing is still evolving, and research going back several decades has indicated that eye position is involved in mental effort and can be revealing in terms of understanding complex thoughts and sentences. Focusing on a subject and processing information from that position are important in social situations. It may signal our beliefs about trustworthiness and sociability. The subtle positioning may also carry significant implications, even in terms of our social…

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Dr. Patricia Farrell
Dr. Patricia Farrell

Written by Dr. Patricia Farrell

Dr. Farrell is a psychologist, consultant, author, and member of SAG/AFTRA, interested in flash fiction writing (http://bitly.ws/S94e) and health.

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