<p>Rather than discuss limits of the human field of view, or extrasensory perception (I don't know anything about the first, and the second is a myth), I think we can look at this as a simple case of illusory correlation (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_correlation">wikipedia</a>), which is both a psychological phenomenon, and something psychologists need to overcome to investigate other phenomena.</p>

<p><strong>In a nutshell, people aren't automatically good at thinking about when events co-occur, and have an inbuilt tendency to see things that happen together, like looking at someone, and having them look back, as being related, rather than random coincidence.</strong></p>

<p>In your example, there are four possible incidents:</p>

<ol>
<li>You look at someone, and they turn around.
You have a pretty good idea of how often this happens.</li>
<li><strong>You look at someone, and they don't turn around.</strong> You can find this out, but people are much worse at making use of this kind of information.</li>
<li>You don't look at someone, but they turn around anyway.</li>
<li>You don't look at someone, they don't turn around.</li>
</ol>

<p>In these terms, your question is simple:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Is someone I'm looking at more likely to turn and look at me then someone I'm not looking at?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>If somehow you could data all four occurrences above, you might run an experiment where you sit on a bus behind 5 other people, and look at each of them for 4 1-minute intervals each.
Looking at 5 people 4 times each, there's 20 opportunities for them to look back at (first column), but there's also 4 times as many opportunities (80; second column) for one of the people <strong>you're not looking at</strong> to be looking at you.
Let's also assume that during this experiment, you're looked back at on 10 of the trials (so not looked back at on the other 90).</p>

<p>Under the null hypothesis (the default you assume if there's no effect of looking at people), if people only look at you on 10% of the trials, you would expect them to look at you on 10% of the trials where you're looking at them (2 trials), and 10% of the trials where you're not looking (8 trials). You can tabulate this expectation like so.</p>

<pre><code>|                       | I'm looking | I'm not looking | Total |
|-----------------------|-------------|-----------------|-------|
| They look at me       | 2           | 8               | 10    |
| They don't look at me | 18          | 72              | 90    |
| Total                 | 20          | 80              |       |
</code></pre>

<p>If, however, you're right, and looking at people does cause them to look back, you should find a significantly greater proportion of people looking back when you look at them, and so a higher value in the top left cell here. The technique we use for finding out if the proportions are different to what you'd expect by chance is called the <a href="http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Pearson%27s_chi-square_test">Pearson's chi-square test</a>.</p>

<p>The problem, to repeat, is that people aren't good at intuitively figuring out these proportions, and tend to overemphasise those few cases where both events happen (you look, and they look back), without appreciating the other 3 cells in the table. And this, my friend, is why we run experiments.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-04-01T10:03:33.900Z
You're right twice over - I hadn't read your point (c) properly, and my definition wasn't too clear. I've had a good night's sleep and a coffee, and rewritten the answer with a hypothetical experiment, which should clear things up! The key point is that the proportion of times you look at someone where they look back needs to be greater than the proportion of times you don't look at someone where they look back to constitute evidence of so-called 'ESP'.
Eoin
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-09-04T15:56:59.293Z
Eoin - The events you list above seem to consider situations when more than one person is involved, but the other explanation doesn't.  For example, if only the "subject" looks back more often than others near them do, or if the "subject" doesn't look back - but others do.  In other words, I am not sure there is a satisfactory explanation - if the "control subjects" are not considered as well.  But, this answer is excluding self-reporting "empaths" - or at least people who encounter this phenomenon.   *The data set might not be valid - if the "lookers" aren't experienced* - even as "subjects".
elika kohen
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-03-31T13:57:50.843Z
2014-04-01T09:59:28.740Z
2014-04-01T09:59:28.740Z
Eoin
<p>You possibly are familiar with the following situation, I do not know if this is a researched phenomena or not however.</p>

<p>You look straight at somebody for some time and suddenly, even though he or she does not consciously know that you are looking at him or her, he or she suddenly starts to look back at you.</p>

<p>I am wondering why and how this is happening?</p>

<p><strong>How are people unconsciously recognizing other people looking at them and what makes them look back to them?</strong></p>

<cognitive-psychology><social-psychology>
Why do people suddenly look back if you look at them for a while?
Jakob Nielsen
# Why do people suddenly look back if you look at them for a while?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-03-30)

You possibly are familiar with the following situation, I do not know if this is a researched phenomena or not however.

You look straight at somebody for some time and suddenly, even though he or she does not consciously know that you are looking at him or her, he or she suddenly starts to look back at you.

I am wondering why and how this is happening?

**How are people unconsciously recognizing other people looking at them and what makes them look back to them?**

**Tags:** cognitive-psychology, social-psychology


---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2014-03-31. Score: 15

Rather than discuss limits of the human field of view, or extrasensory perception (I don't know anything about the first, and the second is a myth), I think we can look at this as a simple case of illusory correlation (wikipedia), which is both a psychological phenomenon, and something psychologists need to overcome to investigate other phenomena.
In a nutshell, people aren't automatically good at thinking about when events co-occur, and have an inbuilt tendency to see things that happen together, like looking at someone, and having them look back, as being related, rather than random coincidence.
In your example, there are four possible incidents:

You look at someone, and they turn around.
You have a pretty good idea of how often this happens.
You look at someone, and they don't turn around. You can find this out, but people are much worse at making use of this kind of information.
You don't look at someone, but they turn around anyway.
You don't look at someone, they don't turn around.

In these terms, your question is simple:

Is someone I'm looking at more likely to turn and look at me then someone I'm not looking at?

If somehow you could data all four occurrences above, you might run an experiment where you sit on a bus behind 5 other people, and look at each of them for 4 1-minute intervals each.
Looking at 5 people 4 times each, there's 20 opportunities for them to look back at (first column), but there's also 4 times as many opportunities (80; second column) for one of the people you're not looking at to be looking at you.
Let's also assume that during this experiment, you're looked back at on 10 of the trials (so not looked back at on the other 90).
Under the null hypothesis (the default you assume if there's no effect of looking at people), if people only look at you on 10% of the trials, you would expect them to look at you on 10% of the trials where you're looking at them (2 trials), and 10% of the trials where you're not looking (8 trials). You can tabulate this expectation like so.
|                       | I'm looking | I'm not looking | Total |
|-----------------------|-------------|-----------------|-------|
| They look at me       | 2           | 8               | 10    |
| They don't look at me | 18          | 72              | 90    |
| Total                 | 20          | 80              |       |

If, however, you're right, and looking at people does cause them to look back, you should find a significantly greater proportion of people looking back when you look at them, and so a higher value in the top left cell here. The technique we use for finding out if the proportions are different to what you'd expect by chance is called the Pearson's chi-square test.
The problem, to repeat, is that people aren't good at intuitively figuring out these proportions, and tend to overemphasise those few cases where both events happen (you look, and they look back), without appreciating the other 3 cells in the table. And this, my friend, is why we run experiments.

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: You're right twice over - I hadn't read your point (c) properly, and my definition wasn't too clear. I've had a good night's sleep and a coffee, and rewritten the answer with a hypothetical experiment, which should clear things up! The key point is that the proportion of times you look at someone where they look back needs to be greater than the proportion of times you don't look at someone where they look back to constitute evidence of so-called 'ESP'.  
> **username_2**: username_1 - The events you list above seem to consider situations when more than one person is involved, but the other explanation doesn't.  For example, if only the "subject" looks back more often than others near them do, or if the "subject" doesn't look back - but others do.  In other words, I am not sure there is a satisfactory explanation - if the "control subjects" are not considered as well.  But, this answer is excluding self-reporting "empaths" - or at least people who encounter this phenomenon.   *The data set might not be valid - if the "lookers" aren't experienced* - even as "subjects".  

---

