Introduction
Imagine standing in the hallway and seeing a person you do not particularly like interacting with. You have eye contact, and you are already aware of this person’s intentions. You know that this person will start walking toward you even before they begin to do so, and you casually begin to walk in the opposite direction as if you did not see this individual. How are people able to evaluate facial cues and people’s intentions in such a short period? Today, I will be talking about eye contact, one of the essential communication skills that people possess.
While many of you might not delve into the essence of human interaction, it is still vital to understand how eye contact impacts all our communication with others and what benefits come from such skill. As an extrovert, I am quite interested in communication and its facilitators, and I believe that the information on eye contact might be important to both extroverts and introverts. I will explain several ways in which eye contact influences the human bonding experience and efficiency of interaction.
Discussion
There are a variety of motives to think that eye contact might be important, and the first reason is that it encourages attentiveness. Eye contact, or when two individuals look each other in the eyes, is a common occurrence in communication, especially when partners are passing the verbal baton at the endpoints of speaking sessions.
According to the study of Wohltjen and Wheatley (2021), eye contact has been shown to increase attentiveness, so it is likely that this impact might urge participants during key parts of a conversation to encourage this interchange. Eye contact is common but brief in everyday conversation, lasting an average of 1.9 seconds (Wohltjen & Wheatley, 2021). This shows that these sustained attention pushes are not randomly placed but rather take place at certain periods to maximize both participants’ attention.
Second, eye contact is a potent visual indicator for fostering connections and more profound understanding among communicators.
According to Jiang et al. (2017), it has a significant impact on a number of effective sensory communication, including face detection, gender identification, and recognizing facial expressions. Although when two individuals assume they are listening closely to each other, it is still possible to have misinterpretation. A discussion can be focused on, and facial emotions may be interpreted more easily when communicators have eye contact. This might enhance comprehension, and enhancing comprehension may greatly enhance two-way interaction.
Lastly, eye contact is essential for the development of social bonds. Eye contact has been found to activate the brain mirror system. This implies that as soon as an individual makes eye contact with someone, similar neurons that are activating in their brain will additionally activate in another person’s brain. According to Wever et al. (2022), if the eyes of one person are expressing happiness, another participant’s neurons will likewise trigger to experience happiness.
As eye contact time lengthens, it is most probable that the social bonding function of eye contact in social engagement with others becomes more important (Wever et al., 2022). Therefore, the study demonstrated that prolonged exposure to dynamic facial stimuli results in increased emotional involvement and more positive judgments from the receiver to the sender.
Conclusion
Today I have reviewed how vital eye contact is in each of our daily interactions and how it allows the individual to receive specific cues from the sender. The next time you interact with someone, you will see that every eye contact or facial expression has a certain meaning or an urge to either reply or react in some way to their actions or words. Understanding the importance of communication is rewarding since it develops a sense of self-awareness and awareness of others.
References
Jiang, J., Borowiak, K., Tudge, L., Otto, C., & von Kriegstein, K. (2017). Neural mechanisms of eye contact when listening to another person talking. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12(2), 319-328. Web.
Wever, M. C., van Houtum, L. A., Janssen, L. H., Wentholt, W. G., Spruit, I. M., Tollenaar, M. S., Geert-Jan, W., & Elzinga, B. M. (2022). Neural and affective responses to prolonged eye contact with one’s own adolescent child and unfamiliar others. NeuroImage, 260, 1-12. Web.
Wohltjen, S., & Wheatley, T. (2021). Eye contact marks the rise and fall of shared attention in conversation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(37), 1-8. Web.