Psychology researcher Robert A Nash, from Aston University in the United Kingdom, describes his experience and studies with eye closure and how it affects memory.

Lead researcher Robert Nash comments, “Our data and other data before us points towards eye closure helping because it removes distraction.”

That’s pretty simple and straightforward; still, he continues, “Closing your eyes might also help people visualize the details of the event they are trying to remember, but our second experiment suggests keeping your eyes shut can help focus on audio information too.”

Nash goes on to describe how their initial reactions led to more questions: “This puzzle was what led us to wonder whether the benefits of eye closure might be improved if the interviewer first take the time to make a witness feel comfortable.”

He continues, “The mechanisms we identified ought to apply to other contexts, for example, trying to remember details of a lecture.”

Plymouth University’s Professor Tim Hollins, adds his independent comment, “This adds to the growing body of research that eye closure might be a useful technique that police may want to use.” He speaks, of course, of witnesses trying to remember the events of a crime they saw. But he also says, “The other nice thing about this piece of work is that they have looked at rapport building too. This data shows the benefit of eye closure and rapport building added together rather than cancelled each other out as some people previously feared.”

But this research is still relatively new so Nash says, “We still need to know much more about the various real-life contexts in which it would be beneficial and appropriate to ask a witness to close their eyes.”