Don’t look at me like that!

(Image: Pixabay CC0) Does eye-contact always attract attention? Not in every case, as a research team at the University of Würzburg's Institute of Psychology has recently shown. Why not? Because context matters. It's a phenomenon that we have probably all experienced. You're in a packed place surrounded by a swirling mass of people, and someone looks you in the eye. You notice it immediately. In fact, it takes no more than a fraction of a second to register and process this eye contact. What happens during eye contact from a psychological point of view? This is what interests Anne Böckler-Raettig, Professor at the Department of Psychology III at the University of Würzburg (JMU).