Eye movements can reveal how willing a person is to wait, research has shown.

Impatient individuals tend to flick their eyes from one focus of attention to another at a faster rate, scientists have found.

The trait may reflect a general need to move and make decisions quickly in order not to waste time.

Scientists from Johns Hopkins University in the US used saccades – rapid eye movements – as a barometer to measure how hurried people are.

Saccades occur as the eyes dart from one point of interest to another.

Study participants were first asked to look at a screen on which dots appeared one at a time, first at one side and then the other.

A camera recorded volunteers’ eye movements as they quickly focused between the dots. Although saccade speed varied between individuals, it remained consistent for each person, even when tested at different times and on different days.

Next, volunteers’ patience was tested with visual commands to look right or left. They were forewarned that 25 per cent of the time a command would be ‘wrong’.

On those occasions, a second command given after an undetermined amount of time would ask the participant to look the opposite way.

Impatient people were expected to be less willing to wait for a possible second command to improve their accuracy.

By lengthening the time interval between commands each time the test was run, the researchers determined how long a participant was prepared to wait. This turned out to be just 1.5 seconds for even the most patient volunteer.