Yahoo News 
This is why you sometimes feel like you’re being watched, according to science
If you’ve ever had the feeling someone behind you was watching you, and then turned round to see someone staring, it’s easy to believe you have superpowers.
But why is it that we sometimes get a creepy feeling that someone is watching – and no one is there?
BBC Future reports this week that sometimes our eyes take in more information than what is processed by our visual cortex – the part of the brain responsible for what we ‘see’ consciously.
The BBC reports on a 2013 study on a man – referred to as ‘TN’ – who had working eyes, but a damaged visual cortex in his brain.
MORE: FBI director James Comey was ‘disgusted’ by hug from Donald Trump
‘TN’ could not ‘see’ – but when he was shown pictures of faces, with some looking straight at him, his brain responded.
Scientists noticed increased activity in his amygdala when people in the pictures looked at him – even although he could not ‘see’ consciously at all.
Dr Harriet Dempsey Jones, writing for The Conversation, says that humans are wired to spot people looking at us – with babies just a few days old preferring faces with a direct gaze.
So those strange moments when you ‘feel’ someone watching you then turn round to find that they are may actually be manufactured within your head.
She says, ‘Some studies have found that up to 94 per cent of people report that they have experienced the feeling of eyes upon them and turned around to find out they were indeed being watched.
‘But, interestingly, you may not be right about being watched as often as you think.
‘If you feel like you are being watched, and turn around to check – another person in your field of view might notice you looking around and shift their gaze to you.
‘When your eyes meet, you assume this individual has been looking all along.
