The tell-tale eye: How your eyes reveal hidden thoughts and emotions

244 Pages·1975·63.43 MB·English

by  Eckhard Heinrich Hess

The TelI-TaIe Eye
HOW YOUR EYES REVEAL HIDDEN
THOUGHTS AND EMOTIONS
ECKHARD H. HESS
The University of Chicago
r
i Van Nostrand Reinhold Company
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Copyright © 1975 by Litton Educational Publishing, Inc.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 74-29309
ISBN: 0-442-23390-6
All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyright hereon may
be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage
and retrieval systems—without permission of the publisher.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Published by Van Nostrand Reinhold Company
450 West 33rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10001
Published simultaneously in Canada by Van Nostrand Reinhold Ltd.
15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Hess, Eckhard Heinrich, 1916—
The tell-tale eye.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Pupillometrics. I. Title. [DNLM: 1. Eye.
2. Nonverbal communication. HM258 H586t]
QP360.H47 612'.84 74-29309
ISBN 0-442-23390-6
to my wife, Dorie,
who made it all possible
LOOK INTO A PERSON'S PUPILS,
HE CANNOT HIDE HIMSELF.
Confucius, 551-478 b.c.
Preface
"Window to the Soul" was the title of this book when I wrote
the first draft. Between then and now I have had a number of
suggestions for other titles. "Window to the Mind" was one,
"The Eye Pupil" another, and even "What the Eyes Can Tell You."
Personally I had a favorite, though somewhat clumsy, title. It was
"With Gun and Camera Through the Window of the Soul."
Perhaps it is still an appropriate subtitle, as the reader may
discover in the following pages. But the title I finally chose is
probably the most logical. The eye, more than any other part of
the body can tell others something about you. The physician
looks into your eye with an ophthalmoscope not only to check
your eye but because by that means, he can see the progress of
your hardening arteries or the signs of kidney damage. The
ageing woman cannot hide her passing years because her pupils
give her away. The poker player cannot hide his emotion when
he draws to an inside straight and a shrewd merchant can see in
his customer's pupils which item for sale is of greatest interest to
him. For all these reasons, as the reader will see, I call this book
The Tell-Tale Eye.
There were many who helped in my search for answers to the
riddles which the pupil presents. Dr. James Polt, while he was my
student, perhaps helped the most. He was my right hand not only
through the years of academic research but during the years in
which I was associated with Interpublic. We coauthored the first
paper in pupillometrics in 1960 and he worked with me until
1967. Three other students took their doctorate with me in pupil
research. Niles Bernick, Benjamin Beck and Alan Seltzer helped in
ix
x Preface
many ways. In more recent years Slobodan Petrovich took over
where Jim Polt left off. Patrick Shrout, Paul Beaver and Spero
Metalis are assisting in my current pupil research in addition to
carrying out work of their own. In regard to my association with
the advertising and marketing world I owe a debt to Hans Zeisel
who introduced me to Marion Harper, Jr. of Interpublic. In
particular it was Harper and Russell Schneider of that organiza­
tion who made it possible for me to explore the fascinating
problems of pupillometrics in relation to advertising and market­
ing. The generous fee I received for my consulting supported my
academic pupil research and the doctoral research of my stu­
dents.
As will be clear when I discuss the beginning of my pupil
research, I owe an enormous debt to my wife Dorie. Not only did
she give me the starting idea but helped so much when the going
was rough. I also thank the University of Chicago for supplying
the space in which I could carry out some of the research
described.
I owe a debt also to Dorothy Ford who typed the first and the
last draft of this manuscript, and to Dr. Elizabeth Goodwin who
checked out the references and took care of the many details
involved in getting permission for illustrations and so on. I also
wish to acknowledge the efforts of George Narita in urging me to
complete this manuscript, the very great aid I received from
Rachel Davison and Alberta Gordon, and Ellen Trager who edited
the final copy. But particularly I am indebted to David Popoff of
the Scientific American editorial staff. When I needed help in the
final editing he graciously spent a day with me. What he did,
more than point out the problems of the manuscript and some
solutions, was to give me an appreciation of the creative joys that
can be involved in editing. For that I will always be grateful.
Eckhard H. Hess
Contents
Preface lx
1 Introduction 3
2 How It Began 7
3 A Little History 23
4 What We Have Found 37
5 More Things We Have Found 65
6 A Breakthrough—Measuring Attitude Change 77
7 Pupils Can Change Pupils 93
8 Other Senses and Mental Processes 115
9 Other Mental Processes 127
10 The Pupil and Other Measures 147
11 Advertising and the Pupil 159
12 A Look to the Future 201
13 Appendix: How Pupils Are Measured 221
Bibliography 233
Index 257
xi
TheTelllale Eye

Introduction
These lovely lamps, these windows of the soul.
Guillaume de Salluste du Bartas (1544-1590).
Divine Weekes and Workes. First Week, Sixth Day.
There is probably no part of the human body other than the
human eye where I feel so intuitively that we have access to the
innermost workings of the mind. This book is about the human
eye and in particular, about the pupil of the eye. I will not
attempt to explain its physiological or neurological workings;
indeed, no one really has this precise and complete information.
Instead, I want to take you on a trip to follow a research project
which began fifteen years ago.
Almost everyone has ideas about eyes, and adjectives have
been ascribed to the eyes in great profusion. Words like soft,
hard, beady, tiny, large, saucer-like, hateful, sly, doe-like, shifty,
crafty, wide, narrow, cold, warm, passionate, fiery, loving, listless,
lively, shining, dull, sparkling, curious, and a host of others have
been applied to the eyes to indicate mood or character. While
such usage has been carried out rather unscientifically, there is
now an increasing scientific recognition of the fact that a
person's eyes, or, more specifically, his pupils, actually do furnish
an objective index of his emotional and mental activity. Even in
the older literature, for example, in medieval poetry, we find
mention of the fact that the pupils grow "large with love" when
an individual looks into the eyes of another appropriate individ­
ual. One can often find sentences by authors which indicate
quite clearly that this phenomenon has been observed for a great
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