There's a reason why you find it hard to keep eye contact

There's certain social interactions in life that are just plain awkward.

Shaking hands before an interview is one, making small talk on the bus with somebody you vaguely know is another and then there's eye contact, which let's face it is never pleasant.

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And while you may have thought your dread of locking eyes with strangers was something you alone suffer with, think again, as a new study has confirmed there's a scientific reason why so many people find it difficult to keep their gaze.

It turns out that our brains find it extremely difficult to think of words while we're trying to focus on a person's facial features, especially their eyes.

According to the study, which was conducted by the Department of Cognitive Psychology in Education at Kyoto University in Japan, this is even more exacerbated in stressful situations, such as in a business meeting or a job interview, where people may be trying to conjure up words they wouldn't normally use.

Researchers put their theory to the test by enlisting the help of 26 people to complete a list of online quizzes.

Participants were placed in front of a computer and asked to solve a puzzle while looking at a photo of a person's face on the screen.

They found that when the puzzle was easy, the participants was able to complete it with ease, however the harder the puzzles got, the less the participants were able to focus on the face before them.

Because of this, researchers believe that we use the same part of our brain to formulate words and hold eye contact and that's why people struggle to do both.

"Although eye contact and verbal processing appear independent, people frequently avert their eyes from interlocutors during conversation," the researchers said in their study.

"This suggests that there is interference between these processes."

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