trying to figure the whole eye contact complication

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ok i know all aspies are different in various ways but can someone generalize to me a explanation as to why eye contact is so difficult for people on the spectrum. i think maybe if I can understand the cause i could find a solution to cope with my current social arrangements and exude a sense of normal.

Thing is, I don't _know_ why. I'm a (far too late) diagnosed Aspie, and have always known that there was _something_ "wrong" with me from other people's viewpoints, but I didn't know what. Eye contact was not it: I remember consciously learning to do it when I was a child, and later in High School Drama & Debate, and college Speech. First, because my mother didn't believe that I was telling her the truth unless I looked her in the eye (sometimes I was, sometimes I wasn't, but the eye contact was required for her to believe me). I've heard and read so many of us saying that it's downright painful, but it never was, for me: just something that I wasn't doing, and learned to do.

I don't know why either, but it has always been difficult for me. I learned to fake it when I was in college and needed it for interviews (I was told I was screwing them up by not making eye contact by a psychology professor...this was in the 1980s so AS wasn't even a diagnosis yet). I wish I knew why because if I could overcome it I wouldn't have to fake any more.

~Kate

I have regularly been told by my family that I dont make enough eye contact and I know that in social situations I avoid looking at peoples eyes and that I should make an effort to look at them if I want to look normal.
I think I avoid eye contact because it feels as if the other person can read my thoughts when when they are looking into my eyes. It almost seems to intimate, the sort of feeling you only want to have with someone who you love and trust.

I believe it is possible to learn when and for how long etc to make eye contact in order to look more normal in social situations, but I think even if I learn the rules that normal people appear to follow it will still take alot of effort on my part to overcome the strong feelings I get when looking at someones eyes.

I approach this question from a development point of view: Natural instincts ---> Learned behaviors.

As a kid, I did not make any eye contact, because I lacked the natural instinct of NT children to make eye contact, usually by turning their heads upwards to look at the faces of adults. I remember that I always looked at adults at my level, e.g. their knees. As I got older, this eye level kept going up, until I got to the level of faces. At this point, I looked straight ahead at faces in my height range. I did not focus my eyes on their eyes, unless I consciously reminded myself to do so.

Now, I have three modes of eye contact. One is looking at people but focusing on a plane halfway between me and them, and this is my natural instinct. It's the way I interact with complete strangers, e.g. cashiers. The second is looking at people - face, mouth, or eyes - when they are talking to me and looking elsewhere when I am talking back to them. This is the way I interact during serious conversations, and it is easier one-on-one and harder in a group. The third is staring people intensely in the eyes, because I looked them in the eye and forgot to modulate my gaze away every once in awhile. This is the way I interact when I get really focused on what people are saying during serious conversations.

So I've pretty much learned to look people in the face, mouth, or eyes the majority of the time, but compared to NTs, my pattern of eye contacts is noticeably different from theirs. Eye contact did not come naturally to me, and it took me many years to learn what others did from birth, but it was and is not anxiety-inducing for me.

Edit: The best kind of "spacetime geometry" for social interaction is to have two people sitting side by side looking the same way and not at each other, because I am not going to glean any information from the other person's face, and the other person will pick up on my signals and misinterpret them all if they look at me. Side by side = Good. Face to Face = Bad.

Looking into someone's eyes is an incredibly personal and incredibly powerful thing. It's giving them power over me. Unless I have a very deep trust for that person, its not something I'll do, and in that situation it's something done consciously.

Looking people in the eye is more intimate than not. When I really get into a conversation I have no idea where I'm looking. Typically even when I do look people in the eye it's not for long because it starts to feel 'weird' somehow.

I too was taught to look people in the eye, I don't know whether I'd do it naturally or not. It seems arbitrary, really.. yet when people don't look me in the eye during what seem to be serious conversations, it does make me less likely to trust them somehow.

Hmm another thing I've noticed, it seems like if someone is looking at me, they'll look me in the eye. Otherwise, they're not looking at me at all. That's the impression I get if nothing else.

One reason I don't look people in the eyes is that I'm shorter than they are and won't give them the satisfaction of "looking up" to them. Some are so bothered by this that they will bend their knees and twist around in an attempt to catch my gaze, the silly twits. But seriously, I think it's more than a height issue. I think it has to do with privacy: just as it's rude to stare at certain body parts, it seems rude to look into the eyes of people I don't know and don't want to know very well. This feels so right to me that I operate under the belief that people in brief encounters are not looking into my eyes just as I am not looking into theirs. Yet from time to time I look up and discover with a shock, they ARE. What's wrong with these people?

The reason I don't make eye contact much is simply because it doesn't naturally occur to me to look them in the eye. And when I do force myself to make eye contact because the other person requires it, I have no idea how long to hold the gaze, how often to look away. Usually I'm either not making eye contact, or staring the person down. I just don't know how to do it naturally.

The reason I don't like to make eye contact is that it makes me feel uncomfortable. It's like eye contact is too much input, I can't make eye contact and carry on a decent conversation.

This is one issue I can't "overcome" no matter how hard I try. I can't do eye contact. I would rather talk to you from another room than be forced to try and look you in the eye while talking.

The reason, I think, that eye contact is so easy for them and so hard for us is that the eye contact thing, where a smile is returned and good feelings ensue between adult and child, takes shape before thought, underpins language and behaviour development and forms the foundation for theory of mind - in normal infants.

For us, it's a constant juggle between "Must make eye contact", "Mustn't stare", "Eye contact causes aggression", "Breaking eye contact looks shifty" and a rising tide of social panic as our facial reactions fail to display the right things at the right times.

Eye contact aversion is actually one of the few aspects of Asperger's that is reasonably well understood at the neurological level.

Basically, when an NT person sees a face, it activates regions of the brain called the amygdala (a pair of small almond shaped structures, one on each side of the brain). This part of the brain has several functions, including recognizing facial expressions and information conveyed by the eyes.

In contrast, when an AS person sees a face, the amygdala remain relatively inactive. Instead, regions of the brain involved in recognizing objects -- like a table or chair -- become activated. This is a completely different pathway requiring cognitive effort, recollection of memory, etc.

This presents several difficulties for the AS person. Firstly, it's hard work trying to figure out a person's mood and intent by referencing memories and analyzing. The AS person can also feel like the whole process is quite intrusive, as if they're gaining a little too much information about the person. Additionally. using this part of the brain means its occupied with something other than what it should be doing -- i.e. listening to and communicating with the other person. This is why people with AS often see eye contact as a dichotomy: "would you rather me look at you or listen to what you are saying" (also evident in some of the replies above).

Some people with AS try to get around it by looking between the eyebrows, or at other parts of the face to feign normality. Interestingly I have very little difficulty making eye contact with people I know very well (immediate family and gf) -- presumably this relates to understanding them better and also not being overly concerned with making a mistake around them.

Last year in a performance review meeting my boss asked me to look at him when we are talking. I made a thread about it at the time and as I recall it has some good advice if you care to look it up.

Thank you, Oceandrop! That's the first really good, explanatory thing I've seen on eye contact! Do you have a source I could look at for more of that kind of thing, with specific brain physiology and activity?

(Your "Avatar" is very distracting to me, almost hypnotic: I fell into it and had to wrench my eyes away from it!)

I can't really explain it fully. I would just say that it feels like there is some type of intimacy by doing it and i'm completely unsure as to how long i should look at someone and what expressions and mannerisms should go along witth it. With a lot of experience although i still dont feel particularly comfortable with it, i feel like i am a lot better. It starts getting bad again the more tired i am. It just used to make me feel very anxious but maybe it just receded a bit over time.