Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Imagine yourself strapped to a chair with your head held in place by some device. The only thing you're free to move is your eyes. You hear something to your left; you'd want to turn your head left to look, or at least take a sidelong glance. Your brain sends the necessary impulses to your muscles--only you can't move.

YOU may think you are pretty hard to read, but artificial intelligence can predict your personality just from subtle, unconscious eye movements. Psychologists have suspected that personality influences how we visually take in the world. Curious people tend to look around more and open-minded people gaze longer at abstract images, for example. Now, Tobias Loetscher at the University of South Australia and his colleagues have used machine learning to study the relationship between eye movements and personality more closely.

The eyes really are a window to the soul. The way they move can reveal your personality type – a finding that could help robots better understand and interact with humans. Psychologists have long believed that personality influences the way we visually take in the world. Curious people tend to look around more and open-minded people gaze longer at abstract images, for example.

Some of us are more ticklish than others, but nearly everyone is unable to tickle themselves. The answer is tied to how we see and how we perceive movement. To get to the bottom of why we can't tickle ourselves, let's first examine another phenomenon. Close one eye, and then carefully push against the side of your other (open) eye, moving the eyeball from side to side in its socket. It should appear as if the world is moving, even though you know it isn't.