Why do you close your eyes when you kiss someone?

Why do you keep your eyes closed during a kiss? Scientists have finally solved the mystery.

Kissing is very pleasant and it even allows you to burn calories. But why are we in the habit of closing our eyes at this fateful moment? This is the question posed by a team of researchers from the Royal Holloway University of London. And the answer is surprising, to say the least …

A story of concentration

If it must be recognized, that opening your eyes in action does not offer an attractive view, this reflex would be far from being a thoughtful action. In fact, our brains would simply be unable to fully focus on two senses at once.

To support their theory, the behavioral psychologists behind this study asked participants to undergo simultaneous activities related to vision and touch. After analysis, they discovered that the more the eyes are at work, the weaker the tactile response.

Ditto when the participants are brought to kiss by dancing or making love at the same time. Eager to focus primarily on touch, they then undergo a visual distraction that prevents them from fully enjoying their sensory experience.

When this study was published in The Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, Polly Dalton, one of the researchers involved explains:

“These results could explain why we close our eyes when we want to focus on a sense other than sight. Depriving ourselves of vision allows us to fully feel the other sensory experience in progress.”

And this analysis is obviously not only intended to understand the mechanism of the kiss. Thanks to these findings, Sandra Murphy, the other person in charge of the project, thinks she can resolve important matters:

“We already knew that concentrating on other tasks could lower visual and auditory stimuli. But our research focuses above all on touch. This is very important because it brings a new look to the treatment of alert system information “.

Alert systems, used on certain car models or on airplanes, are two activities where visual concentration is essential. For Sandra Murphy, these new lights could well make it possible to perfect these systems:

“Our research suggests, for example, that drivers will be less alert to warning signals if they are already concentrating on another visual task such as looking at their GPS to follow a direction.”