Cooperative eye hypothesis Cooperative eye hypothesis The cooperative eye hypothesis is a proposed explanation for the appearance of the human eye. It suggests that the eye's distinctive visible characteristics evolved to make it easier for humans to follow another's gaze while communicating or while working together on tasks. Unlike other primates, human beings have eyes with a distinct colour contrast between the white sclera, the coloured iris, and the black pupil. This is due to a lack of pigment in the sclera. Other primates have pigmented sclerae that are brown or dark in colour. There is also a higher contrast between human skin,
Eodiscina surface. The interlensar sclera is not deeper than the lenses. This type of eye is called abatochroal. A second type of eye, called schizochroal, is unique to the Phacopina suborder, and has up to several hundreds of relatively large lenses (0.05-0.5 mm), that do not touch either, but the corneal membrane extends into the sclera outside the lens, and the sclera is deeper than the lens. The most usual type of trilobite eye, called holochroal, has usually thousands of small hexagonal lenses without an interlensar sclera, and a common cornea. Many later Eodiscina however, lost their visual organs altogether, and