Researchers solve the mystery of why we become wide-eyed when we are scared

Becoming wide eyed with fear helps our friends as we all us, researchers have discovered.

Scientists have previously been unsure as to why the eyes widen if we are scared - but now say it has two effects.
It can help us locate threats by providing a wider visual field, but also helps alert others by letting them clearly see where we are looking, The Daily Mail reports.

The research, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science by psychology graduate student Daniel Lee of the University of Toronto with advisor Adam Anderson, found that wide-eyed expressions of fear benefit both the person who makes the expression and the person who observes it.

'Emotional expressions look the way they do for a reason,' says Lee.
'They are socially useful now for communicating emotional states, but this new research suggests that they were also useful as raw physical signals.'

The findings show that widened eyes provide a wider visual field, which can help us to locate potential threats in our environment.

However, widened eyes also help to send a clearer gaze signal telling observers to 'look there,' which may enhance their ability to locate the same threat, as well.

Lee and colleagues found that participants who made wide-eyed fear expressions were able to discriminate visual patterns farther out in their peripheral vision than were participants who made neutral expressions or expressions of disgust.

The researchers also found that participants were better able to tell which direction a pair of eyes was looking as the eyes became wider.
Wider eyes helped participants respond to targets that were located in the direction of the gaze. Importantly, these benefits did not depend on recognizing the eyes as fearful.

As eyes become wider, we see more of the whites of the eyes, known as sclera.
Lee and colleagues thought this could increase the contrast with the irises that signal the gaze, making it easier to tell where someone is looking - and found that iris display and higher iris-to-sclera contrast were correlated with faster response times.

Lee believes that this research demonstrates just how social we are wired to be.
'Our ability to process other people's eye gaze is already finely-tuned.
'The fact that this processing is further enhanced by expressive eye widening underscores the importance of our eyes as social signals.'