After revisiting this thread I feel the need to expand upon my link as I realize how the meaning of which can be misconstrued. I was completely ignoring the whole "lie detector" aspect of the link, instead I was trying to add into the discussion the correlation between eye movement and active thought. I have a tendency of not feeling like explaining myself fully as once I grasp something in my mind, I sometimes falsely assume it is apparent to others through very simplified communication.(lazy?)
I think that my method of eye contact can be broken down into 3 different behavior patterns. Active listening, active disinterest, and deep thought. The latter two being the behavior patterns in which I do not make eye contact.
1. Active listening is when I am interested enough in what someone is saying as to forego my internal thoughts on the matter until they have concluded their communication with me. This allows me to consume the whole of their communication efforts towards me, and then pass judgement on it based on my internal world.
When I lose focus, for some reason or another, I may find that my eye contact drifts away from the communicator, but can naturally flow back. This is often due to a subconscious thought(intuition) that either the person is wrong, I do not understand what they are saying, or I have the need to integrate what they are saying with my known thought base in order to continue to understand the conversation. In the above situations, my eye contact returns as soon as I have achieved my goal, naturally and without energy, with the caveat of it occuring in about <1 second. If I do not achieve it in less than a second, I force myself to make eye contact again as to not miss anything. This takes energy
Unfortunately, situation 1 is rare so I have learned to adapt by forcing myself to make eye contact in some social situations in order to focus externally to the person communicating with me as to limit the internal noise. It is very energy consuming as I must make an effort to do so. I suppose my goal should be to minimize the energy needed to focus externally.
2. Active disinterest is the behavior pattern I employ when I could give two shits about the subject. It is an external autopilot, with an internal thought process on some other stimuli. Because I am actively thinking, my eyes are directed towards whatever direction of eye movement that correlates to the stimuli I am consuming internally. At the same time, I am able to continue an external conversation with the minimal amount of energy expenditure as I have deemed it not "worthy" of the energy expenditure required for #1.
3. Deep thought is when I am trying to explain something externally, but must utilize my internal thought process to remain on track with the discussion and not be distracted by external stimuli. Because I am actively thinking, my eyes are directed towards whatever direction of eye movement that correlates to the stimuli I am consuming internally.
This behavior pattern(3) makes public speaking an anxiety provoking experience for me. To be a good public speaker, one must engage the audience and project outward. However, in order for me to form a coherent presentation, I must think. Which in turn means no eye contact whatsoever. Which in turn means I would look like a weirdo. The interplay of wanting to think and not wanting to look odd causes my anxiety.
