TORONTO - When you find you can't look away, blame your "inner eye."
A new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience looks at why we feel compelled to glance at an attractive person or rubber-neck at a traffic accident.
York University Prof. Joseph DeSouza — one of the study's authors — says those strong impulses come from a primitive part of the brain.
The study looks at an ancient visual system buried deep within the brain, inherited from animals like frogs and toads.
The structure — called the superior colliculus — helps primitive animals locate food, danger and sexual partners.
DeSouza says this inner eye performs a similar function in higher animals such as humans.
"These types of gazes are more difficult to suppress," says DeSouza, an assistant professor of psychology at York’s Faculty of Health.
A team of investigators at the university recorded and compared the activity of neurons in the superior colliculus using different types of gazes and head movements.
They found the so-called inner eye drives eye and neck muscles toward the target, explained fellow York University Prof. Doug Crawford.
It turns out both sexes are equally "toad-like" when it comes to wandering eyes, the researchers said. Both women and men were found to have trouble suppressing their primitive gazes.
"There is, however, the question of whether one gender tends to be more obvious about it," DeSouza added.
A much newer system, the prefrontal cortex, helps suppress these primitive responses, said DeSouza, referring to work he did earlier at the University of Western Ontario.