Eye contact is critical for public speaking. Communication is like electricity. And making eye contact is the best way to complete the circuit. Here’s why: Making eye contact is the most powerful mode of establishing communication between humans. And it starts at childbirth. A study in 2002 found five-day-old babies prefer looking at faces making direct eye contact compared to those with averted gazes.
Eye contact activates the part of the brain we use for responding. It communicates we are paying attention to the other person. Lydia Denworth writes in Psychology Today, “It is one way we share intention and emotion, and it requires that you synchronize eye movements with someone else.” New research suggests something deeper though. Eye contact is critical for empathy.
Why eye contact is critical when speaking
Eye contact is critical when speaking for several reasons:
First, eye contact informs how audiences perceives you. Your audience will perceive you as warm, confident, and trustworthy if you make the right amount of eye contact. Your audience will feel uncomfortable and perceive you as creepy if you make too much eye contact. Your audience will think you’re nervous or hiding something if you make too little eye contact.
Second, eye contact helps you gauge if your message is landing. Are they nodding? Smiling? Leaning forward in their chairs? If so, they’re engaged. Are their arms crossed? Are they rolling their eyes? Slowly shaking their heads? Sitting back in their chairs? Nodding off? If so, they’re not engaged. And you better change things up.
Third, when you look someone in the eye, he or she is more likely to look back at you. They are subsequently more likely to listen, like you, and support your message. You are also creating a dialogue. The audience is actively engaged and participating even though they aren’t verbalizing their responses.
What is the right amount of eye contact?
Eye contact is like the porridge in Goldilocks and the Three Bears. You don’t want too much, or too little, you want just right. What’s the right amount of eye contact? 3.2 seconds, on average, is about right, according to psychologist Alan Johnston at University College London.
Why is maintaining eye contact so difficult?
Eye contact takes energy. Maintaining eye contact requires a level of mental effort and uses up your brain’s resources, according to research by Shogo Kajimura and Michio Nomura, two researchers at Kyoto University in Japan.
What if you’re not comfortable making eye contact?
Making eye contact is preferable, but looking in the general direction of a person’s face is enough, according to new research from Shane Rogers and Oliver Guidetti at Edith Cowan University. Called the “illusion of eye contact,” the researchers found by looking in the general direction of a person’s face, the other person would perceive you were connecting with them and fill in the gap. They will assume you were looking in their eyes.
There’s only way to increase your comfort level in making eye contact. And that’s to make more eye contact. It requires vulnerability. To see and be seen. To practice, start making eye contact when you go for walks. When you’re at the gym. At the store. Add a nod. A real, but subtle smile. Force yourself to connect with people, even briefly. And if you’re daring, see if you can hold the eye contact with the other person for a couple seconds. See what happens!
To learn how we can help you improve your eye contact while public speaking and/or delivering presentations, please contact us.