You Can Usually Tell How Intelligent Someone Is By Looking At Their Eyes, Says Study
Dana Keli / ShutterstockHave you ever felt like you can tell everything about someone just by gazing into their eyes? Well, research says this intuition might not be entirely unfounded, at least for figuring out how intelligent they are.
Intelligence is too complex to be judged by appearance alone, but our pupils apparently give a subtle signal that can reflect how well our minds process information.
Study says you can tell how intelligent someone is by looking in their eyes
Move over, IQ tests. A study out of Georgia Institute of Technology suggests there's a link between a person's intelligence and their baseline pupil size. Of course, our pupils constantly dilate and constrict in response to light and our emotions, but when they are in conditions where they can rest, they might reveal even more.
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The study's researchers first picked up on the phenomenon while analyzing the levels of mental effort people expend to complete memory tasks. Nearly 500 adults from the Atlanta area participated in the study, and as they worked, the team started to notice that their pupils dilating in response to their effort.
An electronic eye tracker was used to measure participants' pupil sizes. From these measurements, they recorded each person's average pupil size at rest, which typically ranges from 2 millimeters to 8 millimeters, after staring at a blank screen for a few minutes.
The researchers found a correlation between the pupil measurements and cognitive test results.
Participants were also asked to complete a series of cognitive tests that evaluated fluid intelligence, working memory capacity, and attention control. Though not always seen as traditional forms of intelligence, these abilities are more practical processes of thinking and are key to being a good problem-solver.
Interestingly, individuals with larger baseline pupil sizes scored higher on these cognitive tests. They had greater fluid intelligence, better control of their attention, and even a slightly larger working memory capacity. Their overall knowledge and ability to recall facts were not considered part of the study. As in, their "book smarts" weren't important here, it was all about real-world forms of intelligence.
One of the strongest theories is that the connection happens within the brain.
Regardless of whether intelligence is actually related to pupil size, the findings still prove that there is an even deeper relationship between the brain and the eye. "One hypothesis is that people who have larger pupils at rest have greater regulation of activity by the locus coeruleus, which benefits cognitive performance and resting-state brain function," the researchers explained to Scientific American.
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Pupil size is controlled by the locus coeruleus,which also releases norepinephrine, a hormone that helps regulate perception, attention, and memory, among other things. It's possible that individuals with larger baseline pupils in a resting state may experience stronger cognitive activity in this region.
The results of the study are far from definitive, but they may still warrant further investigation. Still, you can test this in real life by simply observing patterns of problem-solving and seeing if the good problem-solvers you know actually have larger pupils.
At the very least, take it as an opportunity to learn more about the people in your life (and maybe do some eye-gazing, too).
Kayla Asbach is a writer with a bachelor's degree from the University of Central Florida. She covers relationships, psychology, self-help, pop culture, and human interest topics.
