Researchers recruited 20 five-year-olds and videoed them individually answering a range of verbal arithmetic questions of varying difficulty. All questions were posed by the same researcher, who sat in front of them.
Half of the children were instructed to look away from the researcher while they considered the answers - a technique known as 'gaze aversion'. The others received no such instruction and acted as a control group.
The team of researchers found that the children encouraged to look away answered 72.5 per cent of the questions correctly, compared with just 55.9 per cent in the control group.
Dr Gwyneth Doherty-Sneddon, developmental psychologist at Stirling University and researcher in the study, said, 'Faces are very cognitively demanding. When we look at a person's face we tend to be drawn into it and this can be distracting. Averting your gaze helps: it makes it easier to concentrate.
'We know that gaze aversion increases as children get older.
Eight-year-olds look away 80 to 90 per cent of the time, but five-year-olds only avert their gaze 30 to 40 per cent of the time.
'It is possible that the encouragement of gaze aversion could improve children's performance.
'However, the technique must be used appropriately. Children gain important visual clues from looking at their teacher's face when the teacher is speaking. But when the child is actively processing something in their head, it can be more useful to look away.'
'Helping children think: Gaze aversion and teaching' is published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology (www.bpsjournals.co.uk/bjdp).