Summary: A new research shows that knowing you’re under monitoring triggers a faster, automated brain response to recognize faces and eye direction. Researchers discovered that those who were using CCTV to monitor physical stimuli developed an acuity almost a second more quickly than those who weren’t, even without realizing it.
Basic sensory perception, a system created to identify threats in our environment, is affected by this spontaneous effect. These findings point to the possibility that surveillance does gently alter brain processes, which could have long-term effects on public privacy and mental health.
Major Information
- Automatic Awareness: CCTV monitoring speeds up face recognition by almost one minute.
- Process of Involuntary Awareness: Members were conscious of their increased sensitivities.
- Mental Health Impact: Surveillance results mirror hyper-sensitivity seen in situations like stress and illness.
Origin: University of Technology Sydney
A recent internal study has demonstrated that when people are aware that they are being watched, they automatically react by becoming more aware of it, which has implications for common mental wellbeing.
Researchers from the University of Technology Sydney ( UTS ) collaborated with 54 participants to study the effects of surveillance on an essential component of human sensory perception, the ability to detect another person’s gaze, in a paper published in the journal Neuroscience of Consciousness.
Associate Professor of neuroscience and behavior Kiley Seymour, the lead author, stated that earlier studies had demonstrated that informed behavior can be influenced by people being watched, but the new investigation provided the first clear proof that watching also has an reflexive reaction.
According to Associate Professor Seymour,” We know CCTV changes our behavior, and that’s the main motivating factor for retailers and other organizations wanting to use it to combat unwelcome behavior.”
” However, we show it’s not only overt behaviour that changes – our brain changes the way it processes information.
We found direct evidence that being conspicuously monitored via CCTV significantly affects a hardwired and involuntary function of human sensory perception, or the ability to consciously recognize a face.
It’s a mechanism that evolved for us to recognize other agents and potential threats in our environment, such as predators and other people, and it seems to be strengthened when we’re being watched on CCTV.
Our surveillance group increased their ability to sense face stimuli almost a second faster than the control group. This perception enhancement also occurred without the participants realizing it.
Given the rise in surveillance in society and the ongoing debates over privacy reform, Associate Professor Seymour said the study’s findings suggested that more research be done to understand how surveillance affects public health in general and how it affects mental processes.
We discovered a surprising but unsettling finding that participants showed little concern or preoccupation with being monitored, but that their effects on fundamental social processing were marked, highly significant, and illiterate.
” Human social interactions depend incredibly on the ability to quickly recognize faces. Information conveyed in faces, such as gaze direction, enables us to construct models of other people’s minds and to use this information to predict behaviour.
We observe hyper-sensitivity to eye gaze in mental health conditions like psychosis and social anxiety disorder, where sufferers have irrational beliefs or preoccupations with the idea of being watched.
Although this investigation focused on unconscious social processes, future investigations should look at effects on the limbic system in general, which would have more general effects on public mental health and the importance of privacy.
About this news from neuroscience research
Author: Terry Clinton
Source: Univesity of Technology Sydney
Contact: Terry Clinton – University of Technology Sydney
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
” Big brother: the effects of surveillance on fundamental aspects of social vision” by Kiley Seymour et al. Neuroscience of Consciousness
Abstract
Big Brother: How surveillance affects fundamental aspects of social perception
Only a limited amount of research has been done on how surveillance affects people, despite the dramatic rise of surveillance in our societies. No study has examined the effects of surveillance on more fundamental and automatic aspects of human perceptual awareness and cognition, despite the majority of research focusing on voluntary behavior.
We demonstrate how being watched on CCTV has a profoundly impact on a hardwired and involuntary aspect of human sensory perception, or ability to consciously recognize faces.
Using the method of continuous flash suppression ( CFS), we show that when people are surveilled ( N = 24 ), they are quicker than controls ( N = 30 ) to detect faces. An independent control experiment ( N = 42 ) demonstrated that demand characteristics and social desirability biases ruled out an explanation for the lack of a plausible explanation.
These findings demonstrate that watching affects both unconscious, involuntary visual processing and consciously controlled behaviors.
Our findings have implications for both the impact of surveillance on fundamental human cognition and public mental health.
