This question involves an interesting phenomenon for me, because I’ve witnessed people claiming it happened to them, but it has never happened to me.
A couple of examples. When I was still in high school, my mother told this story. She was at a make-up counter in a store. And she suddenly had the irresistable feeling someone was staring at her intently. She looked up, and saw the sales lady staring at her. Realize, she could not see the sales lady in her peripheral vision. She somehow “sensed” the store lady was staring at her. Another time, also in hs, I was marching with my school band. A girl in front of me complained to the girl behind her she could feel her eyes right in her back. Again, there was no way she could have actually seen this.
BTW, this subject has been taken up by The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, because if true, it would be a kind of certifiable “esp” phenomenon.
Confirmation bias. If you look behind you, then most anyone behind you walking in the same direction will naturally be looking in your direction. When you look backwards, some will look at you to see why you are doing so.
At the same time, it’s certainly true that the senses are tuned to look for things which seem “off”. And someone who is not moving normally while staring at you if definitely “off”. In fact, the absense of normal sound and motion is itself liable to seep int your conscious thoughts as “Stop and look around now.”
I’m sorry, but what sense would be used to determine if sound and/or movement is normal behind you? In fact, what with all the billions of different combinations of sound and/or movement that are possible in life, how could anyone tell which ones indicate that anyone in particular is staring at a particular individual? It’s not like the eyes send a signal out that pings off the back of your skull.
How frequently in the course of a day do you take note of your surroundings, notice nothing unusual or unexpected, and go on with your day? It’s human nature to note things of consequence and dismiss things of no consequence.
Don’t worry, nobody is staring at us, because nobody is interested in us. Those other people are thinking about their own problems, like why *we *seem to be always looking at them.
If we could actually read the minds of the people around us, we would be surprised, offended, and then ultimately relieved by how infrequently we register in their thoughts.
In the OP’s mother and sales lady story, I have an easy time imagining that someone could pick up on the fact that someone has come along and stood right behind them, just based on sound, without even being aware that it was the sound that triggered the feeling. You wouldn’t even have to hear her walking or breathing or making noise directly - her presence there changes the field of sounds that you’re continuously bathed in.
In the OP’s first case, it might be the the person was staring at her, or looking at her, or maybe just looking in her general direction. In the second case, of course the person marching directly behind will be staring at the back of the person ahead!
If someone is looking at you I think it’s not impossible that you could detect their presence through other cues like the sound of their breathing and their footsteps. I The idea that you know when someone is staring at you - as if staring were qualitatively different from looking and it were advantageous to be able to detect when someone is staring at you - is dubious.
As mentioned in the first response, confirmation bias is big driver of this believe. There are plenty of reasons people will check to see if someone may be looking at them, and if they turn and see someone they’ll remember it while forgetting all the times no one was there. I think at a minimum we are animals, and part of our survival instinct involves awareness of our surroundings and looking out for predators. So checking to see if you are being watched is not at all unusual. Finding someone is actually watching you will create an mental response that will be remembered, while there is no reason to remember the cases where no one was there.
It’s also possible to pick up unconscious cues that someone might be about to stare at you, before turning your back. I’m convinced we can be aware of a lot of things that we don’t consciously notice and seem psychic, but are really just good hunches based on unconscious observation.
A semi-fascinating corollary to the premise in the OP - the ability of many drivers to sense that you are looking at them when your car is stopped parallel to theirs at a light. oo-OOOO-ooo
My next research paper will cover an even stranger phenomenon. Ever wondered how it is that someone with a cold will cough or sneeze just as you are approaching them? My working theory is that the proximity of an approaching human somehow signals the circulating virus to trigger a cough mechanism in its host, to help ensure that you are infected. :eek:
If I’m standing behind you and you suddenly get a feeling that I’m looking at you and turn to look at me, I’m going to see you turning and look to see what you’re doing. I’ll probably be looking at you before you can see me so it’ll look to you like I was looking all along.
Anyone with a camera-equipped computer, especially one issued by a school, shouldn’t need a sixth sense to suspect someone is staring. ESPers need not apply.
When my wife gets up and walks away from me she’ll invariably turn around and catch me staring at her ass. She claims she can feel me looking. She hasn’t been wrong yet. I call that conclusive evidence for the OP.