Why do we kiss with our eyes closed? Psychologist reveals why we do it with our eyes shut
17:44, 22 MAR 2016 UPDATED 22:31, 22 MAR 2016
BY ZAHRA MULROY
Aside from the fact it's extremely unromantic, there is a very good reason why keep our peepers shut when we pucker up
GettyYoung couple in bedTry this with your eyes open - we dare you
Unless you are REALLY not feeling it or constantly vigilant, much like sneezing, kissing is nigh on impossible to with your eyes open.

Up until now, you've probably accepted it as 'just one of those things'. After all, who wants to get overly-analytical about kissing?

But as a study on vision and tactile sensory experience carried out by Royal Holloway, University of London revealed, there is one very good reason why we do it.

Simply put, our brains can't handle it.

Or, as the study more scientifically concluded, our grey matter struggles to process another sense while also concentrating on the visual stimuli - so looking at the object of our affections while kissing them.

Would kissing be less romantic if we did it with our eyes open?
However, before you sign up for any future studies on the same topic, it was in fact conducted without people kissing.

Instead, participants had to do visual tests while their response to something touching their hands was measured.

The tests involved letter-searching tasks which varied in difficulty, the Independent reported, and their response to a small vibration being applied to one of their hands was measured.

Academics Polly Dalton and Sandra Murphy, from the university, shared their findings in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.

What did it mean for kissing?
Apparently, participants were less responsive to the sense of touch as their eyes did more work.

For many activities, people tend to want to focus on touch
So for other activities necessitating a tactile sense - like kissing, dancing and sex - people tend to want to focus on touch, rather than have visual distractions.

It means we can concentrate our energy on the task at hand, and give it one hundred per cent of our effort.

And having been evolved this way for millions of years, it would be a bi off-putting to change now.

Kissing is silly when the girls are eating loads nowadays.

I kiss with my eyes open because kissing is an abomination to me so when I kiss someone my eyes are open in anticipation of what would happen to me afterwards although, nothing ever happens just an old myth my mum created.

What is kissing