De-evolving human eyes: The effect of eye camouflage on human attention

Abstract

Eyes are communicative. But what happens when eyes are camouflaged? In the present study, while either wearing sunglasses (that camouflaged the eyes) or clear glasses, participants were presented with sexually provocative and neutral images, which they viewed in the presence of another person who they knew was observing their eyes. Unbeknownst to the participants, however, we also surreptitiously monitored and recorded their eye gaze in both conditions. People spontaneously looked more and for longer at the sexually provocative images when their eyes were camouflaged by sunglasses. This finding provides convergent evidence for the proposal that covert attention operates in service of overt social attention, and suggests that decoupling overt and covert attention is much more prevalent than previously assumed. In doing so it also sheds light on the relation between the evolution of human eye morphology and systems of attention.