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Hey, Arnold: We seeeee you.
If you haven't been able to tear your eyes away from all the Sperminator stories this week, new research suggests a reason why: When you've heard negative things about a person, his face is more likely to catch your eye. Finally, science provides an excuse for all the time you waste on celebrity gossip sites.
"What we know about someone influences not only how we feel and think about them, but also whether or not we see them in the first place," write the study authors, led by Lisa Barrett, a Northeastern University psychologist. Most of us believe that what we see influences what we feel -- but in this case, what the volunteers felt about a person's face influenced whether they saw it at all.
Here's how they did it: Researchers showed participants two pictures, one in each eye. "To understand the experiments, you’ll need a little background information: When I show you two pictures, one in each eye, you will see only one of them. That's just the way the brain works," Barret explains. "It might flip back and forth, but you will only see one at a time. It’s involuntary."
They showed participants an image of a neutral, androgynous face in one eye, and an image of a house in the other. If they'd told the volunteers something negative about the face -- for example, that the person threw a chair at a classmate -- the volunteers were more likely to focus on the face than if they hadn't been told any gossip. "There is something special about this negative information -- you’ll be more conscious of a face when you know something bad about it," Barrett says. "So gossip has an effect on how your visual system works."
The findings also reveal some surprises about how our visual system works: Past research has suggested that it doesn't matter if you dislike -- that shouldn't influence whether you see it or not. But this study suggests the opposite.
Also, it tells us something surprising about how the visual system itself works. Scientists have found that when you show separate images to the two eyes, as we did in these experiments, it is supposed to be a test only of the visual information available – what you know, or your prior experience, is supposed to have no influence at all. If a picture is bright, or if it has high contrast (dark and light), you are more likely to see it. Whether you dislike something is not supposed to influence whether you see it or not, but it does.
It's a fun psych study -- but as for real-life implications, Barret suggests that this phenomenon may have evolved to protect us from liars and cheaters. "If we see them for longer, we can gather more information about their behavior," she says.
Follow Melissa Dahl on Twitter: @melissadahl.
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Leave a Comment:
Who is 'we'?
Speak for yourself. I wouldn't touch one of those with a ten foot pole.It is beyond me how anyone who calls themself a human being could spend time licking their lips in glee reading that something bad may have happened to a successful, rich,much-admired person.To read it and feel gleeful hoping that it's true is sick. To pay money to read or watch it is evil.
Why don't characters wo would do such a thing instead put the money in the collection jar for crippled children, abandoned animals,or whatever change is being collected for at that counter.Then if they are really that big of a loHOOser,maybe they could go work in their yard, go for a walk, talk to somebody in a constructive way without then turning around and gossiping about them, read something worthwhile, watch classic movies, sign up for an online college course, go do some volunteer work...Pretty much anything that doesn't involve sitting around stewing in your own bile, talking about people who you won't talk to, and hoping something terrible happens to anyone who might have something that you don't because that would make your day!
What pond scum!
I agree with you. Why journalists focus on the maladjusted & dysfunctional I'll never understand. Oh, wait a minute. Unfortunately, many Americans prefer sensationalism to values like integrity, responsibility and accountability. What I find particularly irritating about this piece is that that the writer hides behind science as a way of adding credibility to her argument when, in fact, she has no idea how science validates her tendency to proselytize. It's a weak attempt at journalism to pander to a general weak audience.
The Germans have a very good term for this phenomenon. It's called schadenfreude. (pronounced shah-den-FROY-dah) It means 'pleasure in the misfortune of others'. A lot of times it is a feeling people get when overly righteous folks are found to suffer from the very foibles they rail against, for example, when Larry Craig, a vehemently anti-gay politician was arrested for soliciting gay sex in an airport mens room.
And just one malicious rumor can permanently damage, if not destroy a person's career. There does not need to be any truth behind the allegation contained in the rumor. The Internet can then broadcast this falsehood around the world, destroying any hope of leaving it behind. That is why
Once the damage is done, how can it be undone?
Gossip sites? Like this one? Seriously? Pot calling the kettle black, isn't it?
I'm boring at parties because I pay no attention to news stories about celebs ? Well, this one caught my eye because I was offended by the headline.
I read lots of stuff far more interesting to me. What does an actor or Governor of another state have to do with me and my personal world ? I've never understood the glorification of people we only read about. There are other far more immediate things to occupy my mind like friends, family, community.
I do have to pay attention to local, state, and federal politics but finding information I NEED is very, very difficult. The 'press' only gives me what keeps their clients (advertisers) happy.
This "study" seems to lack scientific validity. First, did they also study whether people recall a face better if something good is said about them? Did they pull that conclusion (that this developed out a human need to remember liars and scammers) out of thin air? It seems to me that the human being is flooded with sensory data all day long, but the people and events we remember are the ones to which we attach more significance, either good or bad.
I completely agree. I was left wondering, don't people focus more on human faces than objects? Did they say to other subjects that a murder had happened in the house? Did they compare two faces, telling the subjects good things about one face and bad things about the other? Or good things about one and nothing about the other? Or bad things about one and nothing about the other? (You get the point). Did they show two "houses," one with a stigma attached? This "study" seems completely bogus. Either that or it was not reported well at all.
I wondered why I had this compulsion to reaad the faux news website
The real truth is we don't give a rats a** about celebs scandals. It's the so called news services put this crap out there. It's getting hard to wade thur all the crap like Arnie, to get to ANYTHING that remotely resembles news anymore. If you had a life of your own BABY, MAYBE, you wouldn't be so interested in someone Else's?
Gossip-A poem
Ditto all the above. This hype is a media thing- like a mother devouring it's young- the viewing public has already moved on.
PS I can't wait for T4 hope Arnold is given a good script! T3 - "I Am Robot, here me 'ZingZue', just didn't cut it.
I don't know what this "We" stuff is but I avoid this garbage at all costs. I have enough in my own life to think about with out preoccupying myself with the lives of others.
Kyle,
Me too. I always seem to be the last to know anything. I just don't watch this stuff. The world is a fairly interesting place and I don't need Hollywood Royalty to make it better.
i LOVE reading about the celebriverse! i just follow hot girls like kim kardashian and other real men like arnie (real men spread their sperm with multiple partners). ppl feel guilty about reading celeb gossip but why? i like seeing what they r doing and if they r in trouble. it's fun to poke fun at them especially if they get caught with their hand in the cookie jar or gain weight ;)
Who is "we?"
You might find that no one misses that garbage if you took it all away. I don't care what category I click on in the US News area it seems that there's another story about some 'famous' person who's done something stupid. Frankly - who cares.?
My only problem is the poll only had two options, obsessed, or couldn't give a flying bleep. There should have been a third option, read gossip items occasionally, but wouldn't be overly upset if the gossip columns disappeared.