A research led by the University of Sydney has found that people often think otherpeople are stating at them even when they aren't. When in doubt, the human brain is morelikely to tell its owner that he's under the gaze of another person.
    "Gaze perception--the ability to tell what a person is looking at--is a social cue thatpeople ofen take for granted," says Professor Colin Clifford from the University's Schoolof Psychology.
To tell if they're under someone's gaze, people look at the position of the otherperson's eyes and the direction of their heads. These visual cues are then sent to the brainwhere there are specific areas that compute this information.
    However, the brain doesn't just passively receive information from the eyes. Thestudy shows that when people have limited visual cues, such as in dark conditions or whenthe other person is wearing sunglasses, the brain takes over with what it "knows".
    The researchers created images of faces and asked people to observe where the faceswere looking. "We made it difficult for the observers to see where the eyes were pointedso they would have to rely on their prior knowledge to judge the faces' direction of gaze,"Professor Clifford explains. "It turns out that we're likely to believe that others are staringat us, especially when we're uncertain."
    "There are several speculations to why humans have this bias," Professor Cliffordsays. "Direct gaze can signal dominance or a threat, and if you perceive something as athreat, you would not want to miss it. So assuming that the other person is looking at youmay simply be a safer strategy. Also, direct gaze is often a social cue that the other personwants to communicate with us, so it's a signal for an upcoming interaction."
    "It's important that we find out whether it's innate or learned--and how this mightaffect people with certain mental conditions," Professor Clifford says.
    Research has shown, for example, that people who have autism ( 孤独症 ) are lessable to tell whether someone is looking at them. People with social anxiety, on the otherhand, have a higher tendency to think that they are under the stare of others.
    "So if it is a learned behaviour, we could help them practice this task--onepossibility is letting them observe a lot of faces with different eyes and head directions,and giving them feedback on whether their observations are accurate."