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Now while the saying goes, “the eyes are the windows to a person’s soul”, and while some may doubt this statement, we can now say that the eyes can certainly be the windows to one’s inner thoughts. Why? Because fortunately, neurological research has put a lot of effort into trying to discern the connection between eye movements and thoughts over the past few years; Thanks to a technology called “Eye Tracking” and ongoing experiments, researchers have now come up with a general pattern of eye movements that most people follow when processing different types of information. And so, the mysterious code of the eye-mind connection has finally been deciphered!

From psychologists to neurobiologists to visual scientists to NLP practitioners and body language experts, eye movements have provided a powerful research tool to investigate the workings of the brain; one of which was the ability to detect specific learning disabilities such as Dyslexia, ADHD, Autism and Alzheimer’s at the earliest stage possible using “Eye Tracking”.

Whether we interact with others at work or in interviews or at a poker game, we never cease to examine people’s eye movements at an aim from us to try to decode what they are actually thinking.

This may sound skeptical until you actually take a ride with me into my quest of some of the most reliable investigations I came across; one of which was a very interesting and reliable study that was done by the American Psychological Association called “Attentional Mechanisms in Judging Genuine and Fake smiles: Eye-movement patterns” and which was published in the PsycINFO Database Record.

They were investigating where, when, how frequently and how long viewers look at each face region especially the eyes for faces with genuine, fake or no smiles. And the results were fascinating!!

The first discovery was:

When viewers fixated on the mouths of the faces with fake smiles before they fixated on their eyes, the face was judged as genuinely happy which means that the viewer was likely to misinterpret the emotional state underlying these blended expressions.

In other words, fixating on other face regions was not as accurate as fixating on the eyes to try to decipher whether something was genuine or not.

The Second discovery was:

The eyes of faces with fake smiles received more fixations and longer dwelling times than those of faces with genuine smiles

Which proves that people make more efforts on observing and analyzing the eye movements of others when they feel skeptical about something as a way to uncover these masks that were hiding the truth of the matter.

Keeping pace with this flood of new information is challenging and hence, our goal is to provide an accessible summary of these “Eye Pattern” concepts and their implications in our daily lives whether analyzing people during conversations or political figures during their interviews.

And so, NLP practitioners and Body Language Experts have come up with the following general evidence-based eye pattern movements:

Remembering an image means people will access their “visual memory” which will make their eyes tend to move to their upper left Sounds people are familiar with will make their eyes tend to move to their middle left as here they will try to access their “auditory memory” Processing linear information like data, statistics, adding up numbers or constructing an image they are not familiar with means they are accessing their “visual constructed” area which will make their eyes tend to move to their upper right. Accessing the “auditory constructed” area; this is associated with sounds they are not familiar with i.e. Not part of their memory and mainly sounds that they are trying to construct in their minds like a new musical piece. The eyes here will tend to move to their middle right. Having an inner dialogue to try to formulate an answer will make people’s eyes tend to move to their lower left.

And last but not least,

6. Feelings or bodily sensations in other words the “kinesthetic” side; here people will tend to move their eyes to their lower right.

However, some left-handed people and a few right-handed ones may have a reversed pattern. Moreover, when a certain answer is very easy and quick to retrieve, people tend to not move their eyes as they look at you.

Remember that while for example, pain relieving medications may be compatible for the whole population, there are a few exceptions of people who are incompatible developing serious allergic reactions as a result. The same goes for these eye patterns, the majority of people follow the above pattern however there are a few exceptions;

In these rare cases, we cannot seek the answer in the theory itself but rather in the person right in front of us. So better test first by asking questions that tackle the different areas we talked about earlier to try to decode their personalized eye pattern system.

Eye Patterns Applied In Real Life Situations

*(Picture 1- On his 100th day in office, President Donald Trump discusses his new role with CBS News' John Dickerson in an interview at the White House)

At that moment Trump was saying, “I got a very nice call from the President of Mexico” and then moved his eyes to his middle left which is consistent with the eye pattern discussed above as the call was not visual, it was auditory and it is not constructed, it was an actual memory

You will notice in this interview that Trump was mostly moving his eyes to his upper right since he was constantly thinking about what he was supposed to say while constructing images in his head

*(Picture 2- On his 100th day in office, President Donald Trump discusses his new role with CBS News' John Dickerson in an interview at the White House.)

Notice here how his eyes moved to his upper left as he was about to say, “First of all if you looked at my statement”- “look” is an indication that he remembered his “statement” in a visual image which is consistent with how he moved his eyes to his upper left as he tried to access his visual memory

*(Picture 3- Interview with Sherrina Navani – Mommy Helper show)

Melania was telling Sherrina at this moment of how her husband was supportive of her as she looks to her bottom right which means she was accessing her kinesthetic or feelings side

Other Implications of the Eye Pattern Technique

Getting in rapport with a person upon understanding his preferred representational system

For example, If you notice someone looking mostly to the upper side whether left or right, then this persons most probable preferred representational system would be the visual system so what might help you in getting in rapport with that person is using visual words like “this looks good” instead of “this sounds good”.

And vice versa, if the person mostly looks to the middle side whether left or right, then it’s the auditory system that’s dominant here and you would you use auditory words like “this sounds good”

Now if the person looks mostly to his bottom right, then this is a kinesthetic person and words like “this feels great” would make him “feel” more connected

Political figures these days are deliberately expressing certain body postures and signs to send unconscious messages of dominant power (P.S. the power handshake). Eye movements, on the other hand, can be very hard to control and so they might hold the key that unlocks their hidden thoughts.

I do hope there will be more credible and further studies on these techniques in the near future so that we can start integrating them while analyzing people. And yes! I think the eyes really are the windows to one’s mind!