Australian psychologists have found that video surveillance enhances people’s ability to detect faces. When participants thought they were being watched through cameras, they responded to faces more quickly than when there were no cameras. As the scientists report in Neuroscience of Consciousness, this effect was not due to a general increase in alertness or attention.
People tend to try to look better than they are in the eyes of others. This also happens when a person believes that he is being watched. Thus, under someone else's gaze (even imaginary), people playing economic games become more generous, steal and cheat less. Research has also shown that supposed or real surveillance makes people uncomfortable, increases vigilance and has a negative impact on productivity at work.
Researchers from the University of Technology in Sydney, led by Kiley Seymour, decided to find out how the supposed surveillance affects the ability of healthy people to recognize human faces or gaze. They conducted an experiment in which they sat participants in front of a stereoscope and a monitor and showed them two images, one for each eye. A bright and contrasting abstract image was directed to the dominant eye, and a human face, looking straight ahead or to the side, was directed to the other. The contrast of the face increased from zero percent to one hundred during the first second, while the contrast of the second image, on the contrary, decreased from one hundred to zero. The face was located to the left or right of a red dot in the center of the image. As soon as the subject distinguished at least some part of the face, he had to use the arrow keys to indicate which side of the red dot it was located on.
One group of participants was observed overtly: there were several cameras in the room, and before the experiment they were shown a live feed from the cameras in the next room. They were also asked to sign a consent form to be observed during the experiment. The control group was tested in a room without cameras and did not sign a consent form. A total of 54 people took part in the experiment. The researchers measured the time it took the participants to spot a face. People who believed they were being watched reacted almost a second faster: they noticed a face looking straight ahead after 2.87 seconds, and a face looking away after 3.16 seconds. Participants in the control group needed 3.65 and 3.93 seconds, respectively.
The scientists then conducted a control experiment with a new sample of 42 people. This experiment repeated the main one, but instead of faces, the participants were shown neutral stimuli - Gabor grids. In this case, there were no differences in the results between the observed group and the control group. That is, observation did not increase attention in general, but rather receptivity to human faces.
Before and after surveys of the participants showed that their anxiety levels did not change after the test, meaning that the results could not be explained by a general increase in anxiety when being watched by cameras. There was also no difference in overall anxiety levels between the subjects in the main and control groups. The authors concluded that unconscious mechanisms for processing faces may change when a person believes they are being watched.
Previously, scientists described the neural mechanism responsible for processing faces.
