There is a common opinion that when looking at the object of adoration, human pupils immediately expand. We decided to check if this belief is confirmed by scientific data.

Similar statements can be Meet Not only in glossy magazines And sites lifstail-theme, but also on Some news resources. In addition, many users “check” this in real life and share their observations in Network. IN Tiktok Even exists TrendWhere are the bloggers Fix The size of their pupils, while mentally represented the object of their adoration or looked at it. This belief was beaten in cinema: for example, in one of the episodes of the British series "Sherlock" the main character emphasizes Attention on the dilated pupils of Irene Adler to prove that she experiences sympathy for the detective. Large pupils in the old days Counted Beautiful, and some women even increased them artificially, digging into the eyes the juice of a poisonous plant - Belladonna.

The pupil of a person is round hole In the rainbow shell of the eye. Different departments are responsible for changing its size Autonomous nervous system. Pupils Expand Thanks to the special muscle - the dilator, which, in turn, Manage sympathetic fibers (fibers emerging from the spinal cord from I - II chest to II - IV lumbar segments). Most often, this process occurs reflexively due to external irritants. So, when on the retina gets A small amount of light, the pupil expands after about 5 seconds. With this reaction, the diameter of the pupil can increase to 8 mm. However, a change in illumination is not the only reason for the expansion of the pupil. Also, to increase its diameter can influence Pathologies and injuries of the eye or brain, a reaction to pain, taking some drugs (for example, antidepressants, antihistamines or plumbing atropine to examine the fundus), the use of recreational drugs or alcohol and sexual excitement.

The first reaction of the pupil to an attractive object Track And described the American psychologist Echard Hess in 1959. He fixed the size of the pupil of his assistant when looking at different pictures. The image of a girl made in the Pin-AP style (from the English PIN UP-“attach”; image Externally attractive girl, created for mass replication and informal distribution), caused that greatest expansion of the pupil. However, Hess was limited only to observation, without conducting any additional experiments.

In 2007, scientists from the Department of Psychology University Tromso (Norway) Spent A study on the connection of the expansion of the pupil with a look at the object of love. They invited 14 women who are three different The phases of the cycle: follicular (before the egg output), ovulatory (during the output of the egg) and lutein (after the egg output) - they showed photographs of different men on the computer screen, including their lovers. The size of their pupils was fixed using an infrared device for tracking the eyes. At the same time, half of the participants took oral contraceptives. It turned out that only during ovulatory The phases that lasts from 16 to 32 hours, when looking at his partner, the pupils increased markedly. Moreover, this effect was observed only in women who did not take hormonal drugs.

In 2012, scientists became interested in male pupils. A group of researchers from the Department of Human Development of Cornell University (USA) invited 325 men and women for a similar experiment. Before its start, the participants were asked to identify themselves from one seven categories of sexual orientation on Kinsey scale: completely heterosexual, mainly heterosexual, bisexual with the dominance of heterosexual, completely bisexual, bisexual with dominance of homosexual, mainly homosexual, completely homosexual. Then, each participant was placed in a room with a monitor, on which at first a minute neutral video with the image of the landscape was broadcast, and then stimulating the video in arbitrary order-a 30-second video with a naked masturbating man or woman. In addition to the fact that the volunteers measured the size of the pupil, they also needed to answer three questions about the presented person: how physically attractive they consider him, how exciting they consider him and how much they would like to meet this person. After these questions, they were again shown a neutral and next stimulating video.

Control of pupils showed that watching erotic videos causes the expansion of the pupils in representatives of both sexes. Scientists also noted that such a reaction in response to the incentive (male or female) generally corresponded to the declared orientation of the participants, while the pupils of bisexual men and heterosexual women expanded the most strongly on the stimulus. Scientists Explain The expansion of the pupils when looking at the sexual object by the release of dopamine and oxytocin, which are actively produced during preparation for intimacy.

However, the expansion of the pupils due to emotions is not always associated exclusively with sexual attraction. Study The 2018 Dutch scientists were aimed at studying the relationship between the expansion of the pupils and the level of trust in the interlocutor. An experiment was conducted using MRI scanners, inside of which the participants watched short videos-the experimental areas showed the eyes of different people whose pupils changed in size. The study showed that in response to the image of a person with advanced pupils, those zones of the brain that are responsible for trust were activated. It is also notable that the pupils of partners in interaction are usually synchronously expand and narrow. This means that in real interaction, such a reaction can be read as a demonstration of mutual trust.

At the physiological level, the “emotional” expansion of the pupil has a scientific explanation. The main role is played here sympathetic fibers, which are Part of the sympathetic nervous system. It is also included in the work with various stressful reactions of the body or the release of some hormones. In case of sympathy or sexual attraction to a person, a person from a psychological point of view experiences A whole range of emotions, and with physiological - is under the influence of a number of hormones: adrenaline, oxytocin and dopamine. It is because of them when looking at a partner or just an attractive person, pupils can expand.

Thus, the pupils when looking at the one whom a person considers attractive is really most often expanding. However, it is about sexual arousal. It is almost impossible to connect the size of the pupils and a sense of love (as well as love in long -term relationships), only such a pattern has such a pattern that do not accept oral contraceptives of women and only in a very short (16–32 hours) phase of the cycle. At the same time, it is worth remembering that the expanded pupils of your interlocutor is not an indicator of his romantic intentions. Pupils can change their size due to the degree of lighting, taking drugs and individual health characteristics, can also affect the level of trust between participants in the interaction. It is also impossible to unambiguously judge that the absence of such a reaction suggests that you are not sympathetic to a person. After all, even when looking at their partner, not everyone demonstrated such a reaction.

Image on the cover: PEXELS, Dominika Gregušová