As title
In: Biology
You feel like someone is looking at you often, most of the time you’re wrong but you only remember the times you were right. Survivorship bias or something like that?
Also possible that sometimes you notice someone looking at you in your peripheral vision or maybe when you turn your head real quick but you only register it subconsciously. Then a bit later that feeling arrives because you noticed someone looking at you, you just don’t remember it.
I’m not a scientist so feel free to tell me where I’m wrong internet strangers.
You can’t tell if someone is looking at you specifically.
However, we are often aware of more things than we realize. Your brain may be noticing movement out of the corner of your eyes (or movement stopping if someone starts staring). You may also have heard certain sounds which indicate a person there.
But also… confirmation bias is happening. We feel people are watching more often than they are. But all the times we feel that someone is watching, look around, and realize nobody is there, our brain decides that isn’t worth remembering. The few times that we think someone might be watching, look around, and are right, our brain files that memory away with post-it-note attached to make it easier to find.
So when future us digs in our memory we immediately find these few times we happened to be correct and forgets all the times we weren’t, giving us the false impression that we are actually good at knowing when someone is watching us.
Latest Answers