The Eye of Beholding

Not only are eyes the window of the soul, but it seems they have a bit to say about the mind as well. Some observations on the eye.

How much the pupil dilates and contracts may tell how much of your cognitive capacity is in use. Studies have shown the pupil dilates incrementally as each new item of a list is memorized. This happens up to your maximum storage capacity of short term memory and then the eye contracts as you recite the items back. When you're finished holding on to them.

People with dilated pupils are also judged more attractive in controlled studies. Even though subjects of the experiments were not consciously aware of pupil sizes. Of course, medieval babes knew this long before the social psychologists created the studies.



In Europe in the middle-ages, eyedrops made from the deadly nightshade plant were popular with women specifically for use in dilating the pupils. The plant earned the name "belladonna" or, beautiful lady, for this reason alone.

Other studies suggest the more flexibility one has (mentally) the higher the natural blink rate while those more set in their ways blink less.

A person's eyes can also tell you how they are organizing information as they speak; whether they are imagining something they've seen, heard or felt or whether they are remembering it, which could be useful in detecting lies.

Eyes may even be able to project energy. This was the basis of mesmerism and the evil eye. And while these particular models have fallen out of favor, it seems we can't shake our experiences there could be something to this. For example, have you ever "felt" someone looking at you? What kind of sense do you make of that?

So much more going on around us than meets the eye, methinks.