Life's Great Mysteries - Why do we look up when thinking hard about something?

I do it all the time, and I’ve seen other people do it. We are trying to remember something, or trying to come up with a creative idea, or trying to think of what to say, so we tilt our head back and look up. Or we at least direct our eyes upward. Do we expect the answer to be written on the ceiling? Do we think the heavens might help us remember that forgotten name of an old acquaintance? Are we begging the universe for help?

Here's one explanation. Most of us think better when we have fewer distractions. If you stare at something complex, like a page in a dictionary, it's hard to rid your mind of all those visual distractions. If you stare at a blank wall, you have fewer distractions. Now, if you consider that humans lived outdoors throughout most of our history, what would our ancestors usually see when they looked up? The sky. And the sky has few distractions, even when there are clouds. You would certainly see fewer distractions than when looking down at the ground. By eliminating those distractions, we are transferring all our mental faculties from external to internal stimuli. We can think better.

Here's another aspect of this to consider. Psychologists have long believed that thinking involves the same brain structures that evolved from pre-existing neural connections for searching for things visually. When you search for a person in a crowd, or search around the house for something you’ve lost, you naturally move your eyes around to help you. This ancient behavior may have also contributed to why we tend to look up when we are thinking. We naturally want to move our eyes, and the best place to look is where there are fewer distractions… the sky.

Photo Credits:
- Thinking woman - DepositPhotos