Lateral gaze is the simple act of shifting one’s eyes to the left or right. It is a common, often subconscious, behavior people perform countless times a day, such as when you look away from someone to recall a name or consider a question. This movement away from a central point of focus is a natural part of how humans process information.
The Brain’s Role in Eye Movement
Looking away when thinking is a subconscious strategy to manage cognitive workload. Your brain constantly processes immense amounts of visual information. When a task requires internal focus, like retrieving a memory, the brain benefits from reducing external sensory input. Looking away from a person’s face eliminates the need to process their expressions, freeing up mental resources for the cognitive task at hand.
This behavior is also influenced by the brain’s hemispheric specialization. The brain has two hemispheres, each specializing in different tasks with contralateral control, meaning the right hemisphere manages the body’s left side and vice versa. Research suggests the direction of your gaze can link to which hemisphere is more active. A person might look left when engaging the right hemisphere for spatial tasks, and right when the left hemisphere is activated for language or logic.
This connection is a subtle inclination, not a rigid rule. The frontal eye fields, regions in the frontal lobe of each hemisphere, plan and initiate voluntary eye movements. When one hemisphere becomes more engaged in a thought process, it can create a slight preference to move the eyes to the opposite side. This results in the brief glance to the side that often accompanies deep thought.
Interpreting Lateral Gaze in Communication
A persistent myth suggests a person’s gaze direction can reveal if they are lying, claiming that looking right indicates a fabricated story while looking left signifies a recalled memory. However, scientific studies have tested this hypothesis and found no reliable correlation between eye movements and deception. The cognitive effort to invent a lie can cause someone to look away, but so can the effort to recall a genuine, complex memory.
These discredited ideas were popularized by Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), a communication model from the 1970s. NLP proposed that “eye accessing cues” were reliable indicators of whether a person was accessing a visual, auditory, or kinesthetic memory, and if it was recalled or constructed. For instance, looking up and to the right was thought to signal a constructed image, while up and to the left meant a recalled image.
Despite its popularity, the claims made by NLP regarding eye movements have been debunked by controlled research. Studies have failed to find evidence supporting these specific connections, making them an undependable method for interpreting thoughts. The most reliable interpretation of a lateral gaze in conversation is simply that the person is thinking.
Lateral Gaze as a Medical Indicator
While a brief glance aside is normal when thinking, a sustained, involuntary lateral gaze can signal a serious neurological event. In a clinical context, this is called a “gaze deviation” or “forced gaze preference.” This is not a fleeting movement but a persistent state where the eyes are fixed in one direction, and the person cannot move them back to the center. This condition indicates a problem with the brain’s control over eye muscles.
Such a forced gaze is a recognized indicator of an acute stroke. In many cases of a large stroke affecting one of the brain’s hemispheres, the eyes will deviate toward the side of the brain where the lesion has occurred. This happens because the damage disrupts the frontal eye fields, which are responsible for driving the eyes to the opposite side. The undamaged hemisphere then takes over, “pushing” the eyes toward the side of the injury.
This symptom can also be associated with seizures, where abnormal electrical activity causes the eyes to look away from the seizure’s origin. Other potential causes include brain tumors or traumatic brain injuries that affect the brainstem or cerebral hemispheres. This medical sign is an involuntary, fixed stare, often accompanied by other severe symptoms like one-sided weakness or loss of consciousness, and requires immediate medical attention.