What Our Eyes Can Tell Us About Our Social and Affective Brain?

Abstract

The eyes are windows to the soul. This phrase present in the common sense popularly expresses that it is possible to deeply understand people’s minds just by how their eyes behave. This assumption is not that far from reality. Analyzing the eyes of subjects, researchers have answered questions of how people think, remember, pay attention, recognize each other, and many other theoretical and empirical ones. Recently, with the advancement of research in social and affective neuroscience, researchers are starting to look at human interactions and how the individuals’ eyes can relate to their behaviors and cognitive functions in social contexts. To measure individuals’ gaze, a machinery specialized in recording eye movements and pupillary diameter changes is used: a device known as an eye tracker.