DaCuBaN
15th August 2005, 17:04
I couldn't believe this when I first read it... some of it is obvious enough, but it irks me that there's something to this "Old Wives Tale" from the Catholic church.
US psychologists found that people shown erotic or gory images frequently fail to process images they see immediately afterwards. And the researchers say some personality types appear to be affected more than others by the phenomenon, known as emotion-induced blindness.
This is one we're all quite familiar with, I'm sure: "Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil"; the idea that we can switch off to those things we did not wish to see...
We observed that people failed to detect visual images that appeared one-fifth of a second after emotional images, whereas they can detect those images with little problem after neutral images, Zald says ... It is possible that emotionally-charged stimuli produce preferential rapid routing of the impulse that bypasses the slower cortical route via the amygdala," Zald told New Scientist. "Patients with amygdala lesions pick out the target image without reacting to violent images, although they show normal blindness reactions when sexual images are introduced, which suggests another mechanism may also be involved.
So maybe all those desensitising horror movies weren't such a bad idea after all ;) Sure, you're no longer human - but hey, at least you ain't blind!
The study assessed participants using a personality questionnaire, rating them according to their level of harm avoidance. Those scoring highly were more fearful, careful and cautious; those scoring low were more carefree and more comfortable in difficult or dangerous situations.
The researchers found that those with low harm avoidance scores were better able to stay focused on a target image than those with high harm avoidance scores.
People who are more harm avoidant may not be detecting negative stimuli more than other people, but they have a greater difficulty suppressing that information, Zald suggests.
Full article (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7845&feedId=online-news_rss20)
US psychologists found that people shown erotic or gory images frequently fail to process images they see immediately afterwards. And the researchers say some personality types appear to be affected more than others by the phenomenon, known as emotion-induced blindness.
This is one we're all quite familiar with, I'm sure: "Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil"; the idea that we can switch off to those things we did not wish to see...
We observed that people failed to detect visual images that appeared one-fifth of a second after emotional images, whereas they can detect those images with little problem after neutral images, Zald says ... It is possible that emotionally-charged stimuli produce preferential rapid routing of the impulse that bypasses the slower cortical route via the amygdala," Zald told New Scientist. "Patients with amygdala lesions pick out the target image without reacting to violent images, although they show normal blindness reactions when sexual images are introduced, which suggests another mechanism may also be involved.
So maybe all those desensitising horror movies weren't such a bad idea after all ;) Sure, you're no longer human - but hey, at least you ain't blind!
The study assessed participants using a personality questionnaire, rating them according to their level of harm avoidance. Those scoring highly were more fearful, careful and cautious; those scoring low were more carefree and more comfortable in difficult or dangerous situations.
The researchers found that those with low harm avoidance scores were better able to stay focused on a target image than those with high harm avoidance scores.
People who are more harm avoidant may not be detecting negative stimuli more than other people, but they have a greater difficulty suppressing that information, Zald suggests.
Full article (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7845&feedId=online-news_rss20)