My friends and I have been trying to figure out if people can truly sense if someone is staring at them. Both supporting and skeptical sources admit that the feeling of being stared at is quite common in our society, but they differ in what they attribute it to.
My belief is that when people feel most vulnerable (when outside or in a public place) and aren’t too focused on any activity, this “sense” surfaces. Most of the time when they cautiously look around they won’t see anyone, but if by chance they do catch someone looking at them, that moment takes on a memorable significance. This memory overshadows the far more numerous moments they were proven wrong. Some people I have spoken to, especially two women, are passionately convinced they have this ability. In those cases, they can tell an entertaining account that demonstrates their ability but further examples are less vivid if even remembered at all.
No. There was a study done not too long ago (a few years back, IIRC) that showed volunteers could not tell whether they were being stared at or not better than random chance would dictate. I’ll try to dig it up for you.
The answer is NO.
I did my own experiment and it didn’t work.
I had two people sit in opposites of the room and the rest of us about 7 people start staring at one side or the other. the two people sitting at opposites will need to raise their hand if they think we are staring at them.
we change people, until everyone had their turn. the best 2 people only got 4 correct out of 10 times.
obviously, we probably didn’t repeat enough times, but it was fun to do in an hours time.
Is it possible that two people who share a close bond can sense this better? Were these experiments conducted with people who had been married for a long time? people deeply in love? family members? even arch enemies?
I’m not ascribing anything supernatural to the ability to do this, but I do think that it can happen. I have absolutely no research to back it up – just anecdotal experience.
It would have to be supernatural, if such a thing was possible. There is certainly no natural mechanism for such a thing. Chances are that thos who “had the feeling they were being stared at” and turned around and caught someone looking at them will be more likely to remember it than if they had that feeling and didn’t see anyone staring. It’s selective memory. Experimentation thus far shows no causality.
My HS chemistry teacher conducted some of the experiments that were used in one of those studies, using student volunteers. I helped him run it, and I also took part in it.
Incredibly, I scored perfect when I acted as the person-being-stared-at. I was the only person to get perfect (several hundred people volunteered).
Over how many trials? Was the study properly blinded? Was it possible you had a view of someone who did know if someone was staring and picked up cues from them?
I’m not a scientist; I’m certainly not trained in the proper scientific conduction of exerpiments. But my chem teacher (who hopefully isn’t reading these boards) was VERY strict about ensuring the trials were carried out perfectly.
The experiment was set up as follows:
The “guesser” was blindfolded and isolated in separate room. In one hand he held a small motor and in the other hand he held a toggle switch.
The “starers”, of which there were two, faced his back through an opening between the rooms. The starers themselves were isolated from the “operators” by a cubicle-like construction.
Prior to inviting volunteers in, the operators used a random generator on a calculator to determine if a given trial would be a stare or no-stare trial. A sheet was filled out indicating what to do on each trial. There were 14 trials per guesser.
With the two starers in their cubicle, an operator hands them the stare sheet.
Each trial lasts 30 seconds. When a trial is to begin, one operator holds a sign in the cubicle indicating a particular trial is beginning. The starers then look on the sheet to see if they are supposed to stare or look away. The sign is held there for 30 seconds, as timed by another operator. At the end of the 30s, the sign is removed and the starers stop whatever they were doing.
At the same time the trial commences, an operator signals to the guesser to “pay attention” via the motor. When the 30s is over, a second pulse is sent via the motor to indicate the trial is done.
The guesser sends his response back via the toggle switch. Up or down to indicate “yes or no” for being stared at.
An operator records the guesser’s response on a data sheet.
At the end of the 14 trials the response sheet is compared to the trial sheet and their “abilities” are calculated.
I do have a theory on how I did so well; I’ll explain in a later reply. It has nothing to do with how the experiment was setup, though.
I’m not a scientist; I’m certainly not trained in the proper scientific conduction of exerpiments. But my chem teacher (who hopefully isn’t reading these boards) was VERY strict about ensuring the trials were carried out perfectly.
The experiment was set up as follows:
The “guesser” was blindfolded and isolated in separate room. In one hand he held a small motor and in the other hand he held a toggle switch.
The “starers”, of which there were two, faced his back through an opening between the rooms. The starers themselves were isolated from the “operators” by a cubicle-like construction.
Prior to inviting volunteers in, the operators used a random generator on a calculator to determine if a given trial would be a stare or no-stare trial. A sheet was filled out indicating what to do on each trial. There were 14 trials per guesser.
With the two starers in their cubicle, an operator hands them the stare sheet.
Each trial lasts 30 seconds. When a trial is to begin, one operator holds a sign in the cubicle indicating a particular trial is beginning. The starers then look on the sheet to see if they are supposed to stare or look away. The sign is held there for 30 seconds, as timed by another operator. At the end of the 30s, the sign is removed and the starers stop whatever they were doing.
At the same time the trial commences, an operator signals to the guesser to “pay attention” via the motor. When the 30s is over, a second pulse is sent via the motor to indicate the trial is done.
The guesser sends his response back via the toggle switch. Up or down to indicate “yes or no” for being stared at.
An operator records the guesser’s response on a data sheet.
At the end of the 14 trials the response sheet is compared to the trial sheet and their “abilities” are calculated.
I do have a theory on how I did so well; I’ll explain in a later reply. It has nothing to do with how the experiment was setup, though.
I see one potential flaw which you don’t address: it is possible for the operator send the “start” and “stop” signals to feed information either by double-triggering the motor, or varying the duration it is on. Unless this operator was blinded as well, the study is flawed.
There has to be some connection between the starers and the motor guy. Someone has to signal when the trials start and end and if motor guy can’t see them, then someone else has to tell him.
Some folks have extraordinary peripheral vision.
Even given that, it’s uncanny how people in the car in the lane next to yours on the highway know they’re being stared at.
Why? if I’m in a car, I look out the window quite often. If someone happens to be staring at me, I’ll notice when I look. To them it would look as if I noticed them starting, but in fact, all I did was turn my head to look at the scenery.
Okay, I’ll try to explain how the operators operated.
When the volunteers were brought in, one operator would take one person (the guesser) to the back room and get him set up. A second operator would get the starers set up. The 3rd operator would generate the trial sheets.
The trial sheet would be given to the starers. The operator who drew up the trial sheet recorded the guesser’s responses and signalled the sign operator, via an electric bulb, when to indicate start and end trials.
As for my theory, its something I’ve devlopped since I was in elementary school. We used to do lots of classroom activities that involed listening to cassette tapes and answering questions about what we just heard, by indicating in check boxes “yes” or “no”. Doing this over and over, I (well, most students for that matter) quickly realized the answers were never very random. Out of boredom, I would fill out the boxes before we did the exercise. Lo & behold, I often did very well at “guessing” the answers. Certain patterns emerged. For example, there would never be more than 3 of the same in a row; if there was a single one, the next would always be the opposite one, etc.
Basically I just applied this technique when I acted as a guesser. So I did cheat, in a way, since I didn’t respond based on how I felt. I responded based on what I thought would be a good pattern. Of course, being a man of science, I informed my teacher of this after the fact. He was quite intrigued; I don’t know if submitted my trial or not.