Body Language of Eyes Defocused or Eyes Unfocused
Cue: Eyes Defocused or Eyes Unfocused
Synonym(s): Unfocused Eyes, Glazing Over.
Description: When the eyes are unmoving and stare blankly seemingly looking through people and things.
In One Sentence: Defocused eyes signals that a person is internalizing emotions and thoughts.
How To Use it: Use defocused eyes to escape and reflect. This can be useful when trying to free one’s self of particularly stressful situation or when one needs time to reflect. Permitting the eyes to lose their intensity is useful while in busy or congested areas of cities as it allows the mind to rest. When you find yourself daydreaming, go along with it, as this can help recharge the mind. Often, daydreaming produces unique ideas and solutions.
Defocused eyes can also be used to signal to presenters that they should improve their delivery.
Context: General.
Verbal Translation: “I’m dealing with something internally. My thoughts are focused and intense or contrarily, daydreaming, thus my eyes are relaxed and unfocused as I think inwardly rather than deal with the external world.”
Variant: Staring or The Evil Eye.
Cue In Action: She tried to get the little boy’s attention, but he stared blankly out the window. His mind had drifted off to an imaginary world of dinosaurs.
Meaning and/or Motivation: Indicates that attention is focused inward rather than outward.
Unfocused eyes can be as much the result of boredom as a desire to seek stimulation from inner thoughts and ideas, instead of what the real world has to offer. Other times, unfocused eyes are due to a need to escape for some time alone to reflect without external inputs. Additionally, people may escape particularly stressful situations through unfocused eyes as a method of coping stoically.
Cue Cluster: The head and body will remain still and be relaxed, the face will be open up and remain calm and blank. The body will seem to lose it’s flex and enter a sort of dormant or zombie state.
Body Language Category: Boredom, Closed facial gestures, Defensive, Disengagement, Distancing or moving away, Escape movements, Indicators of disinterest (IOD), Pensive displays.
Resources:
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Heisel, Marnin ; Mongrain, Myriam. Facial Expressions and Ambivalence: Looking for Conflict in All the Right Faces. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. 2004. 28(1): 35-52.
Matsumoto, David ; Hwang, Hyisung C. Desteno, David (editor). Judgments of Subtle Facial Expressions of Emotion. Emotion. 2014. 14(2): 349-357.
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http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/ambivalent-facial-expression-form-dominance-study
Shah, Rebecca ; Lewis, Michael. Locating the neutral expression in the facial-emotion space. Visual Cognition. 2003. 10(5): 549-566.
Weisfeld, Glenn E. and Jody M. Beresford. Erectness of Posture as an Indicator of Dominance or Success in Humans. Motivation and Emotion. 1982. 6(2): 113-130.
http://bodylanguageproject.com/articles/body-language-cues-dominance-submission-children/
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Woud, Marcella L. ; Becker, Eni S. ; Lange, Wolf – Gero ; Rinck, Mike. Effects of approach-avoidance training on implicit and explicit evaluations of neutral, angry, and smiling face stimuli.(Relationships & Communications). Psychological Reports. 2013. 113(1): 1211(18).
Vanderhasselt, Marie – Anne ; Kühn, Simone ; De Raedt, Rudi. Put on your poker face’: neural systems supporting the anticipation for expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 2013 8(8): 903-910.