system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Is there a psychological reason that people will look up when they're searching for the answer to something?

When people are looking for an answer to something, or trying to seek a centering moment, they will often look up.  Is there a psychological reason for this?
gpt
Yes. 

It is a technique used to dedicate cognitive resources to the "thinking" by reducing the cognitive load of processing visual information. 

Our visual system uses a very large amount of our cognitive resource (brain processing power). 

You can reduce the resource demand of other functions by reducing the level of that stimuli. 

By looking up or at the ground. Or even off to the side at a non-moving /simple scene, you can essentially reduce your visual processing need. 


You can do this with other sensory systems as well.  This  limitation of cognitive resource is why people drive worse when talking.  On the phone or with passengers.  

Because a lot of resource goes to listening and responding in language.  Less to processing the constant changes in the environment.  


Same as whenever you need the environment to be quite so that you can concentrate better. 

It's all about reducing demand of other systems and devoting more resources to a specific task.
We learn to do this at a very early age.