– Why do most people think more effectively when looking upwards?
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In the area of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), it’s understood that there’s a relationship between unconscious eye movement and cognitive function. The direction of the eye movement relates to which hemisphere of the brain is being used at that point.
So (for a right handed person), if a person’s eyes move up and to the left, then that indicates ‘non-dominant hemisphere visualisation’. In other words, that person is remembering things visually.
Eyes moving up and right indicates ‘dominant hemisphere visualisation’ – ie, constructed imagery and fantasy.
So, tl;dr – if a person looks up and right, they’re actually remembering something, but if they look up and left, they’re generally making something up. Skilled people can use these cues to determine if someone is telling the truth or lying.
There’s a thought that this (subconscious) eye movement triggers the visual components of the brain, so people who are better at visualising information are more likely to look upwards.
Another thought is that moving the eyes to a certain position helps the brain focus by lowering input from one of the main senses and reducing ‘noise’ that the brain has to deal with.
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