Title: Ever Feel Like You're Being Watched? It's Not Just You
Headings: Ever Feel Like You're Being Watched? It's Not Just You
Ever Feel Like You're Being Watched? It's Not Just You
Content: some looking straight at him, and some with their gazes averted. TN couldn't consciously see these pictures as we'd see a book or a landscape, but scientists noticed increased activity in his amygdala when people in the pictures were looking directly at him. The amygdala is the part of the brain that prompts our sense of fear and other emotions, and handles facial recognition. Could it be that our brains are trained to subconsciously recognise someone staring at us, even if it's only in our peripheral vision? This idea that a feeling of being watched is prompted by visual but subconscious clues is backed up by other research, which shows that we can tell the difference between a direct and averted gaze somewhere in our line of vision from as young as four months of age. Being able to tell when someone is making eye contact is an important social skill, says psychologist Ilan Shrira from Lake Forest College. It helps us communicate and convey information, which could explain why the brain has evolved this important trick. That said, the ability to sense that we're being watched only applies if the watcher is somewhere within our overall vision. While we might be able to pick up on a direct gaze subconsciously, it all happens through our eyes - we don't have a second pair of invisible pair of eyes in the back of our heads. Several experiments have shown that we can't actually tell if someone is watching us from behind, even though it might sometimes feel like it.