Why don't we keep eye contact?

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It's not something I actively dislike; it's just not automatic. It takes too much effort to consciously hold eye contact to focus on what people are saying. Usually, what I do is make eye contact when someone starts talking, to show I am paying attention, then I let my eyes drift as I listen.

The only person who eye contact with bothers me is my accounting professor. She is no-nonsense (to say the least), and the couple times she looked at me today I automatically felt like I must have been doing something wrong.

Surely the response is eaasy - why do you make eye contact?

I don't think so, at least not for me. If something causes you distress you don't do it. I'm interested in finding out more about the amygdla thing because I feel very unprotected when someone is looking directly at my eyes. Hey, just a thought maybe it's the other way around. We don't like people looking in our eyes.

I can't look at people in the eye when I'm talking. It makes it hard to concentrate on what I have to say, the eyes just make it so distracting/overwhelming for me. I do make eye contact when people talk to me, but most of the time I feel like I'm staring too much at them.

for me it is a case of it simply being far too intense. I have learned to compensate by looking at a person's teeth or some other detail area on their face.
I have also learned some social scripting that makes for a good camouflage short term.

but eyes - well - they are just tooo intense to the extent it is painful to look at them.

I think it's intensity too. Plus I already know the person is there. I tend to look down. If they walk away, I will notice.

exactly. I think this is also related to our difficulties with multi-channel communicating. The visual AND the verbal is just too much to take in all at once.

if I do make eye contact with people, it's only usually very briefly...sort of to "acknowledge" them...but that's about it.

I will make eye contact with my girlfriend's parents though, but usually little else than that.

Exactly, that and people that make eye contact can read my mind, hehe.

I've been giving this some thought, and I believe the reason I don't maintain eye contact very well has to do with the way I process language. (Maybe I'm AS, maybe not, but this is an AS trait I have.) I need to be able to look away in order to think--in order to gather my thoughts and translate them into spoken language. In most cases, I'm not looking away from the eyes because the eyes bother me. I'm looking away from the eyes because my own eyes need to be able to move as I go through the cognitive process of communication. In some cases, if the person is looking at me for too long, I get totally distracted, because I start thinking, "This person's eyes look like they probably have Eastern European ancestry," and things like that. But that's a whole other thing, I suppose.

I've been in many, many situations where the person is looking at me intently as I talk, and I feel obliged to keep looking back at them. But when I do, I lose track of what I'm saying, or can't find the words. Just a few days ago, at a visit to my father's house, my father's wife asked the simple question, "What's new with you guys?" I had to look off to the left for a while to find an answer. As long as I was looking towards her, my mind was a blank. I'm usually not aware of that kind of stuff, but I was then. I was aware that I might be coming across as nervous or wanting to avoid the question. I think it's natural and normal to break eye contact and look away like that, but I sometimes need to do it for a much longer time than is expected. I'm not sure if I'm explaining that well, because I'm not entirely sure that I understand it myself.

Here is an interesting article about how the eyes move when people think about certain things. (Although I don't think it's an exact science)


http://www.nlpu.com/Articles/artic14.htm

Autism isn't mentioned in it, so it would be interesting to hear if it's different for autistic people.

I understand elderwanda. I can process better when I'm not looking at someone. I wish I could go back to the time when I didn't know not making eye contact was rude, because even though I know making eye contact makes me not hear a person properly I still try to do it cause it's polite.

another reason I think is for the same reason I hate talking on the phone:

I have to drop whatever it is I'm actively doing, and focus on making the eye contact.

It may seem all nicey nice, and wonderful to the person you're making eye contact with, but it doesn't make anything any further productive. And I'm all about productivity.

who's lookin' at you?
chuckle chuckle.


I know what you mean...

i just find it uncomfortable most of the time---especially sudden eye contact. when i'm not prepared, it feels like "sneak attack". i think it must be distracting too. a teacher of mine used to say that when i look like i'm paying attention---i'm in the ozone. when i "look like i'm in the ozone"---that's when i really have some idea of what's being said.

Indeed. It explains the feeling of dread.

When I look someone in the eye I get a sinking feeling in my stomach followed by a churning sensation. I easily start sweating. I have big difficulty focusing on what the other person says and am uncapable of responding. And I sort of feel trapped.

I read in Scientif American that autistics don´t keep eye contact because of a disfuntion in the amygdla. The amygdla is the organ responsable for transforming sensory input in emotions. When autistics look in the eye acording to the maganize the amygdla sends the "wrong" emotional response that stresses too much the autistic person forcing him/her to drop eye contact in order to relieve the stress.
The article is this one ( http://cbc.ucsd.edu/pdf/brokenmirrors_asd.pdf )

Also I read elsewhere that Hans Asperger thought that autistics didn´t looked in the eye because he thought that they treated other people the same way they treated things without interest for their emotions/subjectivity etc...

Not nice things to read about!