Why do you close your eyes when you kiss?

When it comes to kissing, we all share a universal reflex: we close our eyes. But why do we instinctively do this? According to a study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, closing our eyelids stems from the fact that a visual task reduces our sensitivity to stimuli in our other senses.

Humans are single-taskers

Human beings can only handle one task at a time, or so this London study suggests. To reach this conclusion, researchers put participants through visual tests and found that their tactile sensitivity dropped significantly when their eyes were open.

Shutting off the visual input frees up mental resources to focus on other aspects

Our brain has the remarkable ability to dial down one sense to give priority to another. For instance, we know that when we are deeply focused on a visual task, our sense of hearing is dulled.

It's all about concentration

So, we close our eyes simply to experience 100% of the sensations that a kiss brings. Shutting out our vision leaves us with more mental bandwidth to fully absorb every other aspect of the experience.