Name: What do our eyes say about us? | BBC Ideas
Uploaded: 2020-10-22T19:16:40.000Z
Duration: 3 min 46 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Throughout human evolution, eyes have been vital to our survival.

so that they can swivel to spot delicious prey

talks about his new car for the third time.

But to get to that point, our peepers have come a long way.

They most likely developed from a tiny light-sensitive patch

on single-celled organisms that would help them move towards light

As the creatures evolved, this patch started to curve inward

to better focus light. And now, a whole bunch of evolution later,

what we've arrived at are two twinkling spheres

that are capable of seeing about a million colours.

We might actually be on to something with that

as our eyes can portray more about our emotions than you might think.

Your pupils dilate when you're scared, nervous or excited.

That could be why they enlarge when we make eye contact

Research has also shown that even making eye contact with

a portrait painting sets off a whole raft of brain activity.

Our eyes are also responsible for another universal emotional reaction

But we actually have three types of tears,

Reflex tears, caused by irritants like dust or chopped onions.

the kind that appear when you find out about Bambi's mum

When it comes to our pupils, it's not just the size of them that varies -

the shape of an animal's pupils can tell us if it's predator or prey.

Some have horizonal pupils, making them more adept at scanning

found on your local goats, sheep, and moose.

Vertical pupils like those found on foxes, cats and crocodiles

are better for ambushing and hunting at night, and have become synonymous

with animals that you just do not want to mess with.

Our round pupils are kind of a best of both worlds

and help us in active foraging and chasing down prey.

Which, you know, we totally do, all the time.

There are quite a few animals who do a better job of seeing than we do.

which sounds like that band your dad might have been in,

was the first animal proven to be able to see colour

Their large, sensitive eyes allow the maximum

However, this does impact their ability to detect fast-moving objects

Human eyes might not be perfect. Parts of them are even useless,

like that little pink bit in the inner corners. \N

like the ones cats, dogs and camels have.

Our eyes aren't just physically interesting, but culturally too.

Much loved by conspiracy theorists the world over, The Eye of Horus

may symbolise the Illuminati to some, but its origins lie in Egypt

where the eye is a symbol representing sacrifice,

In Turkey, some believe that a sideways glance can cause

genuine pain. And thinking back to high school,

Glass pendants, also eye-shaped, are worn to protect

So whether round, monolid, hooded, downturned, upturned or almond,

words you're probably familiar with if you spend as much time watching

makeup tutorials as me, your eyes are unique to you.

we can't for the life of us keep them open when we sneeze.