simont | Windows to the soul

It seems to be a common form of words in fiction to talk about people's eyes being ‘alight’, or ‘blazing’, or occasionally ‘flashing’, or having suddenly ‘lit up’ at some particular moment.

I've always vaguely wondered about this. Obviously they don't literally mean that people's eyes emit self-generated light under the influence of particular emotions. (Well, perhaps they do in some SF or fantasy, but the use of this descriptive form is by no means restricted to technologically or magically enhanced characters.)

A reasonably plausible fallback option might be that when eyes open or move in a particular way it alters their reflective properties; but I honestly can't say I've ever seen anything in the real world which could remotely be attributed to a phenomenon of this type. On the other hand, I don't tend to watch people's eyes all that much – I couldn't tell you my own eye colour or that of people I've gone out with, let alone that of anyone else – so perhaps it does happen and I just fail to notice.

It's been brought particularly to my attention in the last week because I felt an expression on my own face which I somehow subconsciously associated with one of the above phrases. It felt somehow right to me that if I'd been writing fiction involving that expression, I would have been forced to describe it as ‘his eyes lit up’ or something similar; and yet I've never seen anyone's eyes actually do that, and have no particular evidence to suggest that mine did at that moment. I just felt that in an ideal world they ought to have done.

This question has been faintly bothering me for years and years, but as a result of the above it's finally made it to the top of my list of things to be curious about. So, a straw poll for my readers: has anybody ever seen someone's eyes genuinely do, in real life, anything that could be described by any of the luminous metaphors listed above?

While we're at it, I've also never been entirely convinced by descriptions like ‘his face didn't move, but his eyes clearly showed his gratitude’. Has anyone seen that in real life, or is it a commonplace exaggeration appearing only in written fiction?

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I think it's simply that the eyes momentarily open a little wider, which thus makes them briefly stand out, as they're more reflective than skin. You'll also see descriptions of "eyes bright with fear" etc.

You can also have faces lighting up, but that's more obviously metaphorical, presumably driven by the upward "lift" of facial muscles in a smile.

As for the latter sentence, I think what happens there is that they use "face" to mean the muscles of the lower face (below the cheekbones) and "eyes" to mean the muscles of the upper face. A lot of emotion is conveyed in the upper face and periocular region rather than the lower face. So much so, in fact, that the nerve supply of the two regions is quite different.

In some sorts of lighting, some people's eyes do become more vividly coloured, so you can get close to the literal effect if the pupils become smaller and more of the iris is visible. Alternatively, if you just open your eyes a little wider you can get a similar effect.

Apparently there's an instinctive response in humans where we raise our eyebrows for a fraction of a second when we see someone we find attractive. That might give you lighting-up eyes in both a literal and a metaphorical sense.

Or you could be a cat.

(S)

ghoti claims that my eyes change colour depending on my mood, which may be related.

Funny you should say that right now. I had just this moment said to

drswirly that there was a David Eddings character (Polgara) with that somewhat implausible characteristic, but that she was magically enhanced and hence was probably allowed to cheat. I'd taken it for granted that that one was definitely exaggeration and couldn't happen in the real world! How odd.

On the contrary.. depend on levels of illness and anger, Tim's eyes go from aboslutely colourless mid-grey to VIVID blue. I've seen mild changes in the past, but his are quite startling. I could give you approximate hex values as ilustration if you want... ;)

Mine are normally vaguely hazel, but I know they do go greener. I believe it's to do with blood flow, personally; if you look REALLY CLOSELY at an iris, it looks like it's made of lots of little folds; in my case, they're speckly greeny browny rust-red. As they change in size (well, pupillary constriction) and so on, they will have different bits of colour to the fore. Well, it makes sense to me anyway.

Eye colour apparently does change depending on blood flow through the capillaries in the iris. In rather the same way as mood visibly affects blood flow in one's face, it can also affect blood flow in the iris. The web suggests that this is more likely when you have light-coloured eyes to start with.

There is somewhat better documentation for eye colour changing with age or due to disease, although I imagine the mechanisms there are different (there may be actual pigmentation changes).

(And, IIRC, Polgara had grey eyes under normal circumstances, which somewhat supports the credibility of that particular literary device, although I'm not sure I'd like to claim that David Eddings is particularly knowledgeable in the field of iridology!)

romauld has grey-blue eyes that go from pale blue to dark grey to green depending on levels of arousal and anger - very simplistically it relates to how "hot" or "cold" he is feeling. It is interesting.

My eyes are hazel, which means very vary between looking brown/green/grey.

It is said that eyes have "life". They do literally, of course, as part of a living being, but what is meant is that as part of a person's countenance they are expressive.

Well, what is actually meant, I guess, since the eye itself only has pupil dilation and direction to work with, is that the surrounding musculature is expressive.

Phrases such as "lit up" are metaphorical and somewhat romanticised descriptions of sudden displays of enthusiasm, or whatever.

I don't think I've ever considered for one moment taking the metaphor literally; why would I?

On the other hand, one of the reasons firelight and candlelight are considered so romantic is the glorious effect when they glint in one's beloved's eye. IMHO, at least.

Furthermore, the eyes and the surrounding region of musculature are one of the areas the brain appears to key off most strongly when recognising somebody: TV documentaries and the like often just obscure the eye region when they want to display a picture of somebody without it being too easily identifiable. I guess that makes it more likely for us to ascribe changes of expression to a person's eyes.

This might come from historical ideas of how the eyes work. I know that in ancient India vision was explained as a light coming out of the eyes, and being reflected back off objects. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the same ideas turned up in Western history - it is a fairly natural explanation to come up with.

So, perhaps the metaphor is a historical misunderstanding of how eyes work, which has stuck as a fictional cliche.

Indeed, when I was very small I remember noticing for myself that vision had something to do with straight lines, and that therefore I could predict whether I'd be able to see something by working out whether there was an unobstructed straight line between my eye and it. At the time I too thought of it in terms of drawing lines from the eye rather than to it, so I'd tend to agree that it's a natural thing to think!

On the other hand, I'm not sure it ever occurred to me to think of the thing coming out of my eyes as light. Light was obviously stuff that came out of bulbs, the sun, and other such things. I thought of what came out of my eyes as sight. Hmmmm.

Windows to the soul eh? So if someones eyes come up plain blue with white bits in the middle, you know they're dead?

Heh. It did occur to me this morning that perhaps the reason they're called that is because they have to be shut down on a regular basis or they stop working efficiently :-)

Brown :-P

I've certainly been told that my face (as opposed to just my eyes) lights up when I see whoever it is I'm going out with; most memorably, in rather sour tones by someone else who wished it was still them, but nevertheless. From my own observation, people's faces look very different when their eyes are wide; it can take years off someone and totally change what you'd read of their character from their expression. I think maybe the description is a shorthand for that kind of flash of change.

AIUI the fact that human eyes are used to communicate is why we have very contrasty eyes compared to most animals where they tend to be all dark colors and mostly only signal "I'm going to eat you" (something you usually want to hide to the last moment).

These phrases may also have been generated when referring to the intensity that someone is staring at them: a very high intensity seeming like their eyes may in fact be trying to burn the other person's eyes out of their sockets.

Hmm, just a theory.

Ooh, interesting. I'd guess it's partly eyes expanding, and partly that when you look at someone's face you tend to look at their eyes, so you observe small facial changes only when looking at eyes, so associate the subconscious interpretation with the eyes.

I tend to worry when I see people's eyes flashing, lighting up, etc. Admittedly, this is because I've seen way too much Stargate, and eyes lighting up is a clear symptom of Goa'uld possession.

Windows to the soul

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