Walking through the school halls, everyone is wearing masks. Smiles can no longer be easily passed from person to person because of the hindering effects that masks have on our facial expressions. We can no longer understand people by lipreading; instead, we must listen closely to understand what they say. Masks make it especially hard to communicate emotions through facial expressions—or do they? 

As William Shakespeare is credited with saying, “Eyes are the windows to the soul.” This thought is now more prevalent in society than ever, as masks cover about half of our faces. This prevents or shields common facial expressions using the jaw and mouth, like smiling and frowning, from being visible to others. Instead, eyes are now becoming central methods of conveying our inner emotions and thoughts, but the question remains: are eyes effective in communicating emotions and thoughts?

The human eye consists of six muscles that control movements: the lateral rectus, the medial rectus, the inferior rectus, the superior rectus, the inferior oblique, and the superior oblique. These muscles allow for four basic eye movements: rapid eye movements, slower tracking movements, distant target focusing movements, and stabilization to surrounding external movements. Although four movements may not seem like plenty of options to communicate, eyes can convey inner ideas and emotions through their other parts as well. For example, eye pupils are a part of the body that humans have no control over. Since we  cannot adjust the size of our pupils consciously, our pupils dilate subconsciously. According to a study conducted by Professor Eckhard Hess at the University of Chicago, eye reflexes, specifically involving the pupil, can be used to determine what people like and dislike. His research concluded with the theory that “when people see something they like or find interesting their pupils dilate, but when they view something disagreeable, their pupils get smaller.” Therefore, eyes can convey opinions and emotions through their pupils, but this is not the only form of eye communication. Eyes can also communicate through blinking, crying, winking, and simply through eye contact or lack thereof. 

For this reason, eyes are effective in expressing inner reactions and feelings. As a result, the use of masks strengthens our non-verbal communication skills, as we have to adapt and become more perceptive to understand and express ideas to one another clearly. Instead of communicating through large facial expressions, we are beginning to convey smaller cues through our eyes. According to a study published in Science Daily conducted by a neuroscientist at Cornell University, “human facial expressions arose from universal, adaptive reactions to environmental stimuli and not originally as social communication signals, supporting Charles Darwin’s 19th-century theories on the evolution of emotion.” Similar to the evolution of humans using facial expressions as social communication signals, humans now have to rely on nonverbal expressions prominently in social communication due to masks. This movement to more subtle gestures to express emotions makes us wonder if we will evolve as a species towards more telepathically related communication methods.