<p>I have seen time and time again, both in literature and in conversations with people I know, people describing someone's eyes. What I mean is that I have come across phrases like "Focused gaze", "Vacant gaze", "Fearful eyes", "Eyes lighting up", "Eyes glazed over",etc. What exactly is it that causes one to perceive another's gaze as focused, vacant, etc? Is it how often and how much the pupils contract? Is it the frequency of saccades? Is it something else? What is it about the eyes that causes us to perceive a person's gaze as having a certain meaning?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-04-04T08:55:56.197Z
Interesting question. My guess is that with different target of attention the eye muscle has different contraction. Maybe someone with knowledge in facial expression can answer this
Ooker
CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-04-04T11:43:48.280Z
This is both unclear and a little broad. See [face perception](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_perception) in general. [Gaze perception](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00872/full#h3) just refers to detecting what someone is looking at. The rest of what you're talking about is a combination of gaze and face perception.
got trolled too much this week
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-04-07T02:41:10.980Z
Related: [To what degree is emotional state visible in a person's eyes?](https://psychology.stackexchange.com/q/9005/7001)
Arnon Weinberg
<social-psychology><eye-movement><social-cognition>
What causes us to perceive a person's gaze as meaningful?
user73910
# What causes us to perceive a person's gaze as meaningful?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2019-04-04)

I have seen time and time again, both in literature and in conversations with people I know, people describing someone's eyes. What I mean is that I have come across phrases like "Focused gaze", "Vacant gaze", "Fearful eyes", "Eyes lighting up", "Eyes glazed over",etc. What exactly is it that causes one to perceive another's gaze as focused, vacant, etc? Is it how often and how much the pupils contract? Is it the frequency of saccades? Is it something else? What is it about the eyes that causes us to perceive a person's gaze as having a certain meaning?

**Tags:** social-psychology, eye-movement, social-cognition

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Interesting question. My guess is that with different target of attention the eye muscle has different contraction. Maybe someone with knowledge in facial expression can answer this  
> **username_2**: This is both unclear and a little broad. See [face perception](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_perception) in general. [Gaze perception](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00872/full#h3) just refers to detecting what someone is looking at. The rest of what you're talking about is a combination of gaze and face perception.  
> **username_3**: Related: [To what degree is emotional state visible in a person's eyes?](https://psychology.stackexchange.com/q/9005/7001)  

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