The eyes are often perceived as ‘the window of the soul.’ Many people believe that they can reveal the true essence of the self. In fact, according to Webbink (1986), ‘reading’ our interlocutors’ eyes may be achieved through understanding the language of the eyes which he proposes has its own syntax and grammar. Whether that existential argument is true or not, one thing is certain: the eyes serve numerous vitally important communicative purposes. Most importantly, our eyes are the principal focus of visual attention – case in point: The eyes receive 43.4% of attention during interaction with the second most significant feature of visual attention being the mouth, where we center our attention 12.6% of the time (Janik et al., 1978).

‘Reading’ the eyes can be quite complicated. An American professor of cross-cultural management at an international business school in France, who lived her adult life in Europe and Africa, tells a provocative story about being especially sensitive to the eyes. While in Tokyo with a Japanese colleague, this professor presented a brief talk to a group of 20 managers. At the end, she invited questions or comments and as no hands went up, she began to take a seat. Her colleague, however, whispered that there actually were some comments and he asked her if he could try. He asked the group again for comments or questions. Again, no hands were raised, but he regarded with care each person in the silent audience. Signaling to one of them, he asked what she wanted to add. To the amazement of the presenter, the woman responded affirmatively and asked a very intriguing question. The Japanese colleague repeated this numerous times, looking directly at the audience members and asking for more questions or comments (Meyer, 2014).

After the session, the professor asked her Japanese colleague how he knew that those individuals had questions. After a slight hesitation, he explained that it was because of the brightness of their eyes.