Cracking the Poker Face: Your Eyes Betray the Numbers on Your Mind

Wednesday, March 24, 2010 - 14:21 in Psychology & Sociology

Time to get some of those iridescent Chris Moneymaker glasses. According to a new study published in the journal Current Biology your eyes could give away not just whether you have a good hand or not, but the actual numbers of the cards in your hand. Researchers asked study participants to name a string of random numbers, and by measuring horizontal and vertical eyes position the researchers were able to reliably predict the next number before it was spoken. Your bluff just might be toast. The researchers noticed a distinct trend when participants were conjuring their random number strings: A leftward shift accompanied by a downward shift consistently indicated that the next number would be of lesser value than the one before. Likewise, an upward-right positioning suggested a larger number than the previous one. The degree of the movement corresponded to the size of shift in value. Related ArticlesIs the International Space...

Read the whole article on PopSci

More from PopSci

Latest Science Newsletter

Get the latest and most popular science news articles of the week in your Inbox! It's free!

Check out our next project, Biology.Net