Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, chuck here. You ever been in a public
Speaker 1: place and you notice somebody's staring at you? Or have
Speaker 1: you ever been in a public place and stared at somebody?
Speaker 1: People say it's rude. You're supposed to tell your kids
Speaker 1: don't stare. That's rude. But what's the deal with staring?
Speaker 1: Turns out we have a podcast episode from November called
Speaker 1: What's the deal with Staring? We're gonna answer that for
Speaker 1: you right now. Please enjoy. Welcome to Stuff you should Know,
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles w Chuck Bryant,
Speaker 1: and guest producer Role is actually staying in here. I
Speaker 1: believe he's staring at us as funny as we speak.
Speaker 1: It's making my cheek blush just the one though, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is weird to tease? Is what that is? Anything?
Speaker 1: I'm a big tease? Uh spoiler alert? Okay, now that
Speaker 1: was it? That your cheek is hot? It's a post
Speaker 1: spoiler alert post. I don't know if those work count.
Speaker 1: I think you can set the internet off into a
Speaker 1: frenzy if you do it the wrong way. Oh yes,
Speaker 1: we've done that before. Oh, Yeah, that's right, say spoiler
Speaker 1: alert beforehand. Apparently, Yeah, I thought you just spoiled it,
Speaker 1: and then said spoiler alert as a tag. It's not
Speaker 1: how it works, Uh chuck. Yes, have you ever been
Speaker 1: to the grocery store? Uh? Yeah, I was there yesterday.
Speaker 1: Were you did you go down this? Do you buy cereal? Now?
Speaker 1: I don't really buy cereal much either. I I um cereal,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just glad it's still around, but I
Speaker 1: just don't buy it myself. Every once while go down
Speaker 1: the cereal, it's just almost to like visit old friends.
Speaker 1: Like there's the Count Chocola, there's Fred Flintstone, or what
Speaker 1: the heck happened to Lucky the Leopard con He doesn't
Speaker 1: look anything like you did when we were kids, you know,
Speaker 1: look at Tony Tiger. Yes, while while I'm walking down
Speaker 1: the cereal, I noticed like they don't like hold my
Speaker 1: my gaze like they used to. Actually, because you're not seven. No. Actually,
Speaker 1: there's this study that found and I think to the
Speaker 1: last couple of years at Cornell University, they have like
Speaker 1: a whole food psychology program, you know, I love that stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: And they did a study of like I think sixty
Speaker 1: five different cereals and found that, um, the average gaze
Speaker 1: downward gaze is about a nine point six degree gays
Speaker 1: right of just your normal human walking in the serial.
Speaker 1: So like if you were looking at Tony the Tiger
Speaker 1: and you were you were me in our normal adult height,
Speaker 1: he wouldn't be locking eyes with us, But if we
Speaker 1: were little kids, he'd be looking right into our eyes.
Speaker 1: To Can Sam, To Can Sam, Lucky, Captain Crunch, which
Speaker 1: we talked about, Yeah, the Honey Combs Maniac, Yeah, the
Speaker 1: Goalen Fiber Stick. Sure, Um, all of those guy they
Speaker 1: look into little kid's eyes. And the whole reason why
Speaker 1: is because, um, it builds brand trust and brand loyalty
Speaker 1: among um cereal boxes where the character is looking right
Speaker 1: into your kid's eyes on the cereal aisle, there's like
Speaker 1: brand loyalty compared to like among boxes that don't have
Speaker 1: little characters looking into your kid's eyes. And it all
Speaker 1: just kind of goes to show you, like the stare
Speaker 1: even being stared at by a lifeless cardboard cartoon character
Speaker 1: is that powerful that it can It can make you say,
Speaker 1: I want to eat what's inside of you? You know,
Speaker 1: so the gays it's powerful or like the old days
Speaker 1: when I was single and I would go into a
Speaker 1: bar and just like go right up beside a lady
Speaker 1: and just stare at her face until she looked at me.
Speaker 1: Make your eyes as wide as you possibly could. They
Speaker 1: love that stuff. Very powerful. It shows what a pain
Speaker 1: there you are. A creep, is what that would be? Sure? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean that's a that's a really great point.
Speaker 1: Like if it's a leprechn on a cereal box, you're
Speaker 1: not threatened or intimidated by it, but there's still some
Speaker 1: sort of power to its gaze. Right, if you're another
Speaker 1: human being that is so powerful it has to be
Speaker 1: wielded very delicately, because people don't like to be stared at,
Speaker 1: as as this this House to Works article points out,
Speaker 1: it's simply rude to stare. Yeah, it can be. I mean,
Speaker 1: depending on what culture you live in, it can be
Speaker 1: everything from intimidation tactic to a to an affront to
Speaker 1: like something that's very aggressive. Um yeah, it means a
Speaker 1: lot of things around the world. But I didn't find
Speaker 1: a lot of cultures where it was super nice. No,
Speaker 1: the closest thing I can find was Argentina being called out.
Speaker 1: Um as it being socially acceptable for men to stare
Speaker 1: at women. That doesn't mean that it's welcomed, right, it's
Speaker 1: not welcomed necessarily or wanted, but it's not like what
Speaker 1: are you doing kind of thing. But I couldn't find
Speaker 1: any culture around the world we're just outright staring is
Speaker 1: just normal and fine. It seems to be like universally
Speaker 1: it makes people uncomfortable. It seems like, yeah, well this article, uh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna draw from a few but one from our
Speaker 1: own website. Why is it rude to stare? Which it
Speaker 1: never really answers Actually no, it doesn't. Just sort of
Speaker 1: give some reasons dance around it. But um, I did
Speaker 1: think they made a good point whoever wrote this early
Speaker 1: on in the article, that humans are constantly categorizing things
Speaker 1: when we look around at anything, uh, from inanimate objects,
Speaker 1: you know, that desk looks comfortable, or that chair looks nice,
Speaker 1: or that car is cool, or that person is h white, Uh,
Speaker 1: that person is a woman, that person is attractive, that
Speaker 1: person isn't. Like We're always scanning and dropping things into
Speaker 1: different mental boxes. And uh so they make a pretty
Speaker 1: good point. I think whenever something is just slightly off, um,
Speaker 1: like that person has one leg it just the brain
Speaker 1: has an instinct to to stay stay on that gay
Speaker 1: is a little longer because it just disrupts the normal,
Speaker 1: like that's a thing, that's the thing, that's a thing,
Speaker 1: and that's a difference. So let me look at that
Speaker 1: for a minute, right, And the the whole idea behind
Speaker 1: us walking around constantly scanning our environment is this idea
Speaker 1: that we've evolved to at first, I guess probably hunt
Speaker 1: for predators. Remember in like the gun control episode, we
Speaker 1: talked about how humans can recognize a gun in the
Speaker 1: environment as readily as recognizing snakes or spiders. So we're
Speaker 1: training to to pluck stuff out of our environment that
Speaker 1: may or may not be a threat. Yeah, as we've
Speaker 1: kind of moved away from the possibility of, um, you know,
Speaker 1: a bear eating you. Typically it still happens in free quently,
Speaker 1: but for the most part, we're not threatened by bears. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: we've we've that that same ability has kind of moved
Speaker 1: into this social realm where that whole in group out
Speaker 1: group categorization that we've talked about two really kind of
Speaker 1: comes up. And so we're walking around saying you're okay,
Speaker 1: you're all right, you maybe a threat. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: move over here on the other side of the street.
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily recognize you, but we can do all
Speaker 1: this like pretty quickly. Right. But it's like you were saying,
Speaker 1: if you see somebody with missing a face, for example,
Speaker 1: is a good is a good one? Um? And I
Speaker 1: read this Wired article that sited a woman who basically
Speaker 1: was like she her husband shot her in the face,
Speaker 1: and she walked around before a face transplant, like missing
Speaker 1: a significant section in the middle of her face, and
Speaker 1: she just was stared at all the time. She said
Speaker 1: she had to get used to it. Um. This article
Speaker 1: points out that all you're doing necessarily is taking in
Speaker 1: more information than you're used to, and we we do
Speaker 1: that by staring. It's a result of saying, there's more
Speaker 1: info than I can just get through with a quick plants.
Speaker 1: I need to look at you a little while longer, right. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then there was a study at usc AS in
Speaker 1: southern California. This one makes a lot of sense to
Speaker 1: me because I think what you're doing is you're satisfying
Speaker 1: a curiosity like, Um, I guess Oscar's historious is a
Speaker 1: weird example. Now that he's gone through that thing. But
Speaker 1: let's say pre that, uh, pre that incident, you would
Speaker 1: see someone like Oscar Oscar Pistorius and say, wow, I
Speaker 1: want to see how this guy runs without legs. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look at him put on those blades and
Speaker 1: and run and of course he's a you know, it's
Speaker 1: a spectator sport anyway, But I mean it happened any day, like, uh,
Speaker 1: someone who's handicapped, Like, I wonder how they drive a
Speaker 1: car with no legs, So it's very interesting. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna look at that and watch the get in the
Speaker 1: car and have a specially outfitted car with hand operations.
Speaker 1: So it's it's it's weird because it's in that case.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's rude, but you're walking a fine line,
Speaker 1: but it is still very rude. Another UM non murderous example,
Speaker 1: like the second one you gave is um uh. There
Speaker 1: was in this study at USC they used um women
Speaker 1: with a novel biological effectors, meaning in this case that
Speaker 1: their arms hadn't fully developed, but they were performing functions
Speaker 1: that people would normally use their hands for with their
Speaker 1: residual limbs. Right, So someone might be like, wow, how
Speaker 1: is she painting exactly cooking her dinner exactly. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, you're right, you're walking that fine line,
Speaker 1: so you're staring, but maybe you look away, but then
Speaker 1: you look back and you kind of have to take
Speaker 1: it in in pieces, because we are in this weird
Speaker 1: position where we want to take in but we're also
Speaker 1: socialized to not stare as well, it's rude. Well. What
Speaker 1: they determined in the study, though, which sort of backs
Speaker 1: up the idea that it is satisfying the curiosity, is
Speaker 1: they looked at the brains of people like staring at uh,
Speaker 1: let's say the lady without the formed limbs, and after
Speaker 1: they looked for a little while, the brain lit up
Speaker 1: at first like oh my gosh, what am I seeing?
Speaker 1: This is super interesting, and then the brain normalized. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, okay, well that's how she cooks her dinner.
Speaker 1: That's really neat exactly, and then they were able to
Speaker 1: interact normally after that point. So it's almost like, as
Speaker 1: long as your brain hasn't gotten enough information to its satisfaction,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna feel comfortable. There's gonna be something weird
Speaker 1: and different around. And if you interact with somebody before
Speaker 1: you've sat your you've satisfied your brains and need to
Speaker 1: understand what the heck is going on there. Um, then
Speaker 1: you might not interact with him as comfortably as you
Speaker 1: would if you were able to sit there and take
Speaker 1: it back. And they did this by having people watch
Speaker 1: other people through like a one way mirror I think,
Speaker 1: and watched them for a few minutes the brains, I
Speaker 1: guess became satisfied or figure it out, you know what
Speaker 1: the process was. And then after that they interacted with
Speaker 1: the people much more normally than they did before they
Speaker 1: were able to fully satisfy their brains curiosity. Yeah, it's like,
Speaker 1: this might be a pretty lame example, but it's like
Speaker 1: if you have a huge ZiT on the end of
Speaker 1: your nose and you walk into a group of friends
Speaker 1: for a meeting, you might say, just get over with
Speaker 1: I got this huge ZiT on my nose, like Fred
Speaker 1: Savage and Austin Powers the Mole, like acknowledging it, Hey,
Speaker 1: I got this huge thing. Instead of being weird about it,
Speaker 1: just go ahead and take a good gander. Isn't it amazing?
Speaker 1: And now let's just act normal. And then nine times
Speaker 1: out of ten people are like, yeah, great, I just
Speaker 1: put my hand in front of my face and pretend
Speaker 1: that nothing's different. Is the makeup not working right? But
Speaker 1: the thing is, it's you know, a ZiT. You know,
Speaker 1: you people have zits themselves, fairly well understood and it's transient,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So there is definitely looking
Speaker 1: at somebody who is differently abled or um, just different
Speaker 1: in any way. It can be considered rude, especially if
Speaker 1: that person has to put up with it again and again.
Speaker 1: But I think there's just not that understanding of what
Speaker 1: is the basis of it. And of course kids are
Speaker 1: going to do that, and his parents you are probably
Speaker 1: a Johnny on the spot by saying, don't stare at
Speaker 1: that person, that lady without a face, she you know,
Speaker 1: it's not nice. Uh, Whereas the kids just thinking like
Speaker 1: I've never seen someone without a face, right, and the
Speaker 1: parent you know, I was thinking that same thing, but
Speaker 1: they're just having to do the parental thing and you know,
Speaker 1: like steal a quick glance and then tell the kid
Speaker 1: not to stare because it's been socialized out of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's super interesting to me, but it seems to be
Speaker 1: innate because kids do it and then they have to
Speaker 1: be taught not to do it, right, Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: wonder almost if it's then in that in that circumstance,
Speaker 1: if it's like a vestigial trait. Uh, you know, like
Speaker 1: it's an innate thing that, like the kid is responding
Speaker 1: to the kids evolutionary history, but it hasn't been socialized
Speaker 1: to not do that yet. So there's like this social
Speaker 1: layer that's being put on top of an evolutionary trait.
Speaker 1: So staring seems pretty straightforward so far, right. Actually it
Speaker 1: gets way way more complex and we will dig into
Speaker 1: that right after this. So we're back and we're talking
Speaker 1: about being stared at, which, by the way, I didn't
Speaker 1: get a chance to listen to it, but um, Robert
Speaker 1: and Julie at stuff to blow your mind, did this
Speaker 1: did a staring episode a few years back? I would
Speaker 1: guess yeah, yeah, Um again, I don't know. I'm sure
Speaker 1: they did, though, now that you mentioned so, um, Chuck,
Speaker 1: we're talking about staring, and you know, maybe the evolutionary
Speaker 1: adaptations to it. Um, And there's a further idea that
Speaker 1: we've actually evolved, our eyes have evolved to really understand
Speaker 1: when somebody's looking at us. Right, I think it's pretty
Speaker 1: neat the gays detection system. Yeah, they make the point
Speaker 1: in here which article is just from this one was
Speaker 1: from Psychology Today. Basically, the difference, the main difference between
Speaker 1: humans and a lot of animals is with people, you
Speaker 1: can see a lot more whites of the eye than
Speaker 1: you can with most animals. So the dark parts, that is,
Speaker 1: the parts that look at you, Uh, you can really
Speaker 1: tell when those things are moving around. You can tell
Speaker 1: when you're being looked at a lot more easily. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: like if the dark parts are in the center of
Speaker 1: the eye, roughly, you can assume that you're being looked at.
Speaker 1: If the dark parts are to the right, the person
Speaker 1: is looking at the right. If the dark parts are
Speaker 1: to the left, vice versa. Right, I'm looking at Knoll
Speaker 1: out of my I guess you would say peripheral, but
Speaker 1: exactly so. And I can just I can relax because
Speaker 1: you're not looking at me. You're looking at Noel, So
Speaker 1: I can go back to knitting or starting fires whatever. Um.
Speaker 1: But Noel needs to be on his best behavior. And
Speaker 1: that's actually one of the two um suggestions for why
Speaker 1: we're so responsive to being looked at. Like there's there's
Speaker 1: a couple of things, so this gaze detection system. They've
Speaker 1: they've determined that, um, if you are looking towards me, chuck,
Speaker 1: but over my shoulder, and I can just kind of tell. Right,
Speaker 1: so your head is looking at me, your eyes are
Speaker 1: generally I mean, but you're just like a degree or
Speaker 1: two off, like right now, is that weird? Yeah, right now,
Speaker 1: you're say it is kind of off putting. But right
Speaker 1: now you're setting off a different kind of neuron in
Speaker 1: my brain than you are now that you're looking directly
Speaker 1: at me. Now, different neurons are firing, Like specific neurons
Speaker 1: for when someone is looking right at you fire, which
Speaker 1: is exactly like we have basically a region of the
Speaker 1: brain dedicated to that. And I have to say, you
Speaker 1: and I are like staring at each other way more
Speaker 1: than normal in this episode. Oh yeah, interesting, or maybe
Speaker 1: we're just talking about it more than you so I'm
Speaker 1: not sure. Uh. The other cool thing is they you
Speaker 1: tend in your peripheral vision to notice more when uh like,
Speaker 1: instead of someone just looking at you straight on with
Speaker 1: her body in their face, if someone is looking from
Speaker 1: the side and turning their head completely uh to the
Speaker 1: right to look at you, that will stand out a
Speaker 1: lot more in your peripheral vision than someone just standing
Speaker 1: staring straight at you. Yeah, which is super weird. It
Speaker 1: really is. Today, when I was driving in Um, there
Speaker 1: was this woman walking her baby and a stroller down
Speaker 1: the street, and I was just looking at her kid,
Speaker 1: and I was driving parallel to her, but my head
Speaker 1: I'm sure was turned toward them. She wasn't looking anywhere
Speaker 1: near me. Just all of a sudden, she turns her
Speaker 1: head and just completely like meets my gaze right like
Speaker 1: like she saw somehow, probably in her peripheral vision, that
Speaker 1: there was somebody in a car looking at her kid,
Speaker 1: and she needed to check it out, so she threw
Speaker 1: the cover over the stroller real quickly. It's like, come on, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's I don't know. I find all this stuff fascinating,
Speaker 1: Like whether or not you can feel when you're being
Speaker 1: stared at directly to your back. Let's say, well that's
Speaker 1: something different. So like this all of sum up to
Speaker 1: this point, uh, we've been talking about stuff that can
Speaker 1: be explained away using like your peripheral vision, noticing other
Speaker 1: people's body language, um, looking at where the eyes are.
Speaker 1: Now we're getting into just some weirdness and something called
Speaker 1: the psychic staring effect or scope astigia, or the feeling
Speaker 1: that you're being stared at from behind, even though there's
Speaker 1: no way using your normal senses, you should be able
Speaker 1: to tell that someone is looking at you. Yeah, and this, uh,
Speaker 1: there was a paper This is from the article of
Speaker 1: the Feeling of being stared at And there's an old
Speaker 1: paper from um from Science magazine called the Feeling of
Speaker 1: being Stared At by Edward uh Titchener. And he said,
Speaker 1: and this was sort of a weird feedback loop, but
Speaker 1: he said, you go to the front of a room
Speaker 1: and you have your back to everyone, you're gonna feel
Speaker 1: like you're being stared at, and then you're gonna get
Speaker 1: nervous and start fidgeting around, which will cause people to
Speaker 1: stare at you. So that doesn't too much for me.
Speaker 1: He also he also said, um, it's possible that it's
Speaker 1: um when you think someone staring at you, you start
Speaker 1: to turn around to see them, to catch somebody staring
Speaker 1: at you or to see who it is, and they'll
Speaker 1: then look at you. Right they notice you moving and
Speaker 1: they start looking at you. Before you've made it all
Speaker 1: the way around, you were looking at me, and you
Speaker 1: say no, jerk, didn't look at you until you turn around,
Speaker 1: looked at me right, and then it just turned into
Speaker 1: a fist fight every time without fail. So Titchener basically
Speaker 1: was like, it's all illusory, it's it's done. He didn't
Speaker 1: really write necessary early about all of his methods or
Speaker 1: study size or anything like that, but um, he he
Speaker 1: felt like he kind of settled it. Fifteen years later
Speaker 1: there was a guy who picked it up again. His
Speaker 1: name was Je Couver. He wrote another paper called The
Speaker 1: Feeling of Being Stared At and he tried a little
Speaker 1: more scientifically to figure out what was going on, and
Speaker 1: he had a pretty cool I thought his technique was
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. It was okay. Um. He would sit there
Speaker 1: and have a study participant with his back to him,
Speaker 1: and he would roll a dice a die, and if
Speaker 1: it came up even, he would not stare at them
Speaker 1: for fifteen seconds. If it came up odd, he would
Speaker 1: stare at them for fifteen seconds. And then each time
Speaker 1: the person needed to write down what they thought whether
Speaker 1: they were being stared at or not. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: was it lined up pretty consistently. Um, But what this
Speaker 1: uh points out and what a few of the other
Speaker 1: staring studies point out is if you know you're in
Speaker 1: a staring study, you may be more clued in even
Speaker 1: if you're blindfolded to think like, oh, you know, I
Speaker 1: feel like someone staring because I'm supposed to write exactly
Speaker 1: like you're thinking about being stared exactly. So UM. In
Speaker 1: this Je Couver study from UM, he found that people
Speaker 1: guessed at about fifty They were right about fifty percent
Speaker 1: at the time, which is even with chance. Right. So
Speaker 1: that suggests that you don't really have at any kind
Speaker 1: of signal or sense that you're being stared at. You're
Speaker 1: just guessing, and you're primed to be in guests and
Speaker 1: yeah like UM. Follow up studies have shown that if
Speaker 1: people are distracted with another task or if they don't
Speaker 1: think the studies actually about whether or not they're being
Speaker 1: stared at, they almost never guessed that they're being stared at. UM.
Speaker 1: It only starts to show up in studies where you're
Speaker 1: testing for that sense of being stared at and they're prime.
Speaker 1: But even then they're just guessing at about the same
Speaker 1: rate as chance. So Tishner and Couver and others later
Speaker 1: on over the years have basically suggested that scope astigia,
Speaker 1: or that feeling you're being stared at, is very widespread.
Speaker 1: Most people believe that they can tell when somebody's staring
Speaker 1: at them, but that it's actually an illusion, right. That
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily explained in any of these but it is.
Speaker 1: It is a widespread illusion that humans tend to suffer
Speaker 1: from universally, well and anecdotally. You might remember the times
Speaker 1: where I feel like someone staring at me and someone is,
Speaker 1: but not remember the times that you feel like someone
Speaker 1: staring at you and you look up and no one
Speaker 1: staring like you don't catalog that. Well, that was another
Speaker 1: thing they found too, is that there's no no one's
Speaker 1: ever found any any idea that you can tell when
Speaker 1: you're not being stared at. It's just it's just being
Speaker 1: stared at that we suppose you have a sense for.
Speaker 1: All right, well, let's take another break here and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about a few more weird staring studies right after this.
Speaker 1: All right, alrighty, we're back, and here's a weird staring study. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they've done a lot of them, and this is from
Speaker 1: an article the Many Creepy Experiments and involves staring at people.
Speaker 1: Uh great website So this one, UM the Stairs a
Speaker 1: Stimulus to flight and human subjects, was I thought pretty
Speaker 1: interesting and kind of a no brainer. Basically, they would
Speaker 1: have someone stand on a corner and then when people
Speaker 1: would pull up in their car at the light of
Speaker 1: the stop sign, they would just stare at them in
Speaker 1: their car, and then they would time how long it
Speaker 1: took them to get the heck out of there when
Speaker 1: the light turned green. And of course, naturally they don't
Speaker 1: even release the results. Imagine it was about the people
Speaker 1: sped out of there when the light turned green. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they had a control group that they specifically didn't stare
Speaker 1: at or look at, and they definitely left that intersection
Speaker 1: much more slowly because there's not a creep leering at you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a weird study, but I mean, I guess it
Speaker 1: added to the scientific body on staring by um this one.
Speaker 1: I thought this was interesting because it actually harkens back
Speaker 1: to uh what Titchener studied too, was that there's this
Speaker 1: weird part of the psychic staring effect where you you
Speaker 1: physically you can feel like you're being stared at, like
Speaker 1: the back of your neck gets hot. When I was
Speaker 1: in college, I used to like my scalp would get
Speaker 1: hot or something, you know, like I could just I
Speaker 1: just knew I was being stared at from behind. Um.
Speaker 1: And this this study found that we we produced some
Speaker 1: sort of physical effect when we're stared at. Right, so
Speaker 1: they had this In this particular study, they had UM,
Speaker 1: a psychologist sitting there, I guess interviewing a person, and
Speaker 1: then another psychologist would be staring at the person while
Speaker 1: they were forced to either read out loud or sing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The person being stared at would have to do those things, yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you for specifying that. And um, the other the
Speaker 1: second psychologists would stare like directly at their cheek, and
Speaker 1: the person would blush all over, especially if they were
Speaker 1: having to sing, But the cheek that was being stared
Speaker 1: at would blush more, it would get hotter, Like physically,
Speaker 1: they would measure this. Yeah, it wasn't just anecdotally, like
Speaker 1: my right cheek feels hotter, and it's no one has
Speaker 1: any idea how this happens or why this happens, but
Speaker 1: it's almost like the self consciousness that's produced in being
Speaker 1: stared at is directed to the specific part of the
Speaker 1: body that's being looked at. You know. That's very bizarre
Speaker 1: that has well because they haven't figured it out. I
Speaker 1: know they'll probably isolate something at some point. Yeah, eventually
Speaker 1: they will. But I mean, like, if you start to
Speaker 1: compile like this body of knowledge on staring, you get
Speaker 1: the idea that we have a very loose grasp on
Speaker 1: the effects of staring and what it what it does,
Speaker 1: and what it signifies and why it's around. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty interesting. I always loved those episodes. I do too.
Speaker 1: There was this other study I thought was pretty interesting
Speaker 1: called gay dar colon I Gaze as identity recognition among
Speaker 1: gay men and lesbians, and I tried to find a copy.
Speaker 1: I couldn't find one that I didn't have to pay
Speaker 1: like fifty bucks for, but I did read some summaries.
Speaker 1: It basically looks into how how gay men and women
Speaker 1: use a stare to either assess someone's sexuality or too
Speaker 1: broadcast their own sexuality. And it's not always just a
Speaker 1: fixed gaze, you know, not some like creepy stare, but
Speaker 1: it was mixed with like body language and looking away, uh,
Speaker 1: and like a flirtation at times. But I thought it
Speaker 1: was pretty interesting. It's definitely not just like some heterosexual
Speaker 1: concept um and staring is not just creepy. It's not
Speaker 1: just for flirting. They've actually found in other studies that
Speaker 1: it's a it's a way too um to ask for
Speaker 1: help actually, and it gets results supposedly. Yeah, this one
Speaker 1: didn't make a ton of sense to me. So, like,
Speaker 1: if you spilled some groceries, I think is what this
Speaker 1: one study did. If you drop some groceries and you
Speaker 1: bend over and picked them up, If you just like
Speaker 1: kind of keep to yourself and like bend over your
Speaker 1: groceries and you're looking down at I mean, you got it,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. In this study, if you
Speaker 1: look up, though, and you're staring at a passer by
Speaker 1: while you're doing this, they take that as an invitation,
Speaker 1: if not a directive, to come help them pick up
Speaker 1: the groceries. And people respond to that. It's the same thing. Like,
Speaker 1: think about it, like if somebody is in a situation
Speaker 1: where they could use help, but it's also ambiguous, like
Speaker 1: they kind of got it, but did they really need help?
Speaker 1: If they're looking at you, they're broadcasting help me. They are.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of funny because I'm trying to think
Speaker 1: of it just seems like a no brainer. Like if
Speaker 1: I saw a woman in a parking lot who would
Speaker 1: like spilled her groceries, and I was walking by, and
Speaker 1: she looked up right at me as I was passing
Speaker 1: and picking up, I wouldn't just so like, how you
Speaker 1: doing and keep going, Yeah, boy, you look like you
Speaker 1: got it under control, like I would. Of course I
Speaker 1: would stop. But if she didn't look up, yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: I would feel like I'm intrudingly, you know, so they
Speaker 1: doesn't want me putting her hands on her groceries, right,
Speaker 1: And that is like, like, that is one of the
Speaker 1: theories behind why we're so adept at catching other people's
Speaker 1: gazes is that it's a it's a means of communicating
Speaker 1: non verbally, very directly. Right. So, so that woman who
Speaker 1: dropped her groceries, or anybody who drops her groceries, if
Speaker 1: they're handling themselves, leave them alone. If they're looking up
Speaker 1: directly at you, they're communicating with you. They have spilled
Speaker 1: their groceries, and what they're saying is I could do
Speaker 1: some help with some groceries packing them up. Um. And
Speaker 1: that's that that theory behind that, the idea that we
Speaker 1: communicate and engage in social behavior just from looking. It's
Speaker 1: called the cooperative eye hypothesis. And it's basically this idea
Speaker 1: that a bad band name cooperative eye hypothesis. It's a
Speaker 1: little worthy, but a little like I could see like
Speaker 1: a math rock band. It's no Kathleen Turner Overdrive maybe
Speaker 1: the best band name of all time. Um. But this,
Speaker 1: this whole thing is that we we are able to communicate. Um,
Speaker 1: not just that we need help, but also we tend
Speaker 1: to follow one another's gaze. If one person is looking
Speaker 1: off in the distance and clearly looking at something not
Speaker 1: zoned out, people are gonna look over there. And it's
Speaker 1: basically the same thing as like a herd of gazelle
Speaker 1: looking over one gazelle and high alert is suddenly looking
Speaker 1: at Yeah, you wanna you wanna have some fun, Go
Speaker 1: to New York City or any city and just with
Speaker 1: one other person and just go stand and both look
Speaker 1: up and stare at something and then just sit back. Well,
Speaker 1: you can't sit back, but have a friend sit back
Speaker 1: and watch how many people? And in New York, of
Speaker 1: course they won't stop and look, but everyone that passes
Speaker 1: you by will look up and say, what in the
Speaker 1: world are these two people looking at? What are you
Speaker 1: looking at? What's up there? You just don't say anything,
Speaker 1: and then a game of telephone will break out. People
Speaker 1: will just start making up what's up there? Yeah, And
Speaker 1: then it becomes a what do you call it when
Speaker 1: people all get together and dance at one time? Some
Speaker 1: flash mob? Flash mob? That's an organic flash Yeah. You
Speaker 1: have a bunch of people staring um. It's very boring
Speaker 1: flash mob. I got one more, all right. The idea
Speaker 1: that UM being aware of being stared at is basically
Speaker 1: keeps us in line. And the idea that we're being
Speaker 1: stared at or watched, oh makes you behave Yeah. Another
Speaker 1: socially pro social motivation UM. And I got another grocery
Speaker 1: store example. I was at the grocery store yesterday and
Speaker 1: I was walking in the parking lot and this woman
Speaker 1: had her cart and I noticed her like looking around,
Speaker 1: and she was about to leave her cart right there
Speaker 1: and the parking lot. Next ser she saw me looking
Speaker 1: at her, and she like just suddenly went and walked
Speaker 1: it over the car corral. I could tell by her
Speaker 1: movement she was not playing on going to the car
Speaker 1: correl until she saw me watching her, and then she
Speaker 1: took it to the car crawl and I'm like, yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: You engage in more ethical behavior if you think you're
Speaker 1: being watched, and that would explain why we're so. We're
Speaker 1: such a social species and they just having that height
Speaker 1: and awareness that you're being watched is possibly part of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's one of my couple of big rules in life
Speaker 1: that are meaningless to most people. But always return your card, yeah,
Speaker 1: you honest, people like, oh they pay people to go
Speaker 1: around and get the cards. It's because they have to
Speaker 1: write because of you. And the other thing is, uh,
Speaker 1: always throw your movie theater popcorn and drinks away on
Speaker 1: your way out. Oh yeah, the people that just get
Speaker 1: up and leave the movie theater with their popcorn bag
Speaker 1: and their drink there. Yeah, I just don't get it.
Speaker 1: Like those are I'm just gonna go and say it.
Speaker 1: Those are the worst people on the planet. If you
Speaker 1: want to become canonized Chuck, not only should you return
Speaker 1: your cart, you can do the opposite and take a
Speaker 1: cart from somebody so they don't even have to take
Speaker 1: it back if you're on your way in. You I
Speaker 1: have done that. That's that's the stuff. I rarely use
Speaker 1: the big cart though, I'm I do a lot of
Speaker 1: daily grocery shopping. Good way to go. It's very Dutch,
Speaker 1: is it? According to the stuff for the next article,
Speaker 1: it is. Yeah, well I wear my wooden clogs and
Speaker 1: ride my bicycle. It's very astute of you. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Are you got anything else? You know what? This just
Speaker 1: reminded me. I did have one slight more thing you've
Speaker 1: heard of vidal I goo, um what Michael Jackson had
Speaker 1: their skin condition? Where parts of your skinner lighter than others? Uh? Uh?
Speaker 1: I posted on Facebook there was this uh young woman
Speaker 1: who has viddle igo on her arms and she finally
Speaker 1: just got a tattoo and lovely script on her forearm
Speaker 1: that said it's called a middleago. And I posted about this,
Speaker 1: and then she apparently listened to the show and she
Speaker 1: posted thanks for sharing this guy. Yeah, I thought it
Speaker 1: was kind of neat, But I'm curious to hear from
Speaker 1: people that have I can't remember what they call them
Speaker 1: in the studies novel novel biological effects, Right, Basically, you
Speaker 1: know something unusual physically that people might be prone to
Speaker 1: stare at. I want to hear from people and how
Speaker 1: you deal with that, or if you've gotten used to it,
Speaker 1: or if you think it is super rude, or if
Speaker 1: you're like yeah, I would stare at me too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that is a great call out. Yeah. Um, and
Speaker 1: well let's see listener mail and then we'll hit it
Speaker 1: up again. All right, La todos. My name is Amy
Speaker 1: and I'm an English teacher living abroad in Malaga, Spain.
Speaker 1: I'm a recent fan and only discovered your part casts
Speaker 1: when I was desperate for something to listen to on
Speaker 1: the metro rides. That's when everybody comes to the first
Speaker 1: podcast I listened to us how Nazis invaded Florida and
Speaker 1: I haven't stopped downloading. Now. The real reason I'm sending
Speaker 1: the emails a little strange. I teach many adult classes.
Speaker 1: My students are always asking how they can practice listening
Speaker 1: to native speakers. Many people don't know that in Spain
Speaker 1: all of the American or English TV series or movies
Speaker 1: are dubbed. I did not know that in Spanish voice
Speaker 1: that right didn't have any I figured like a high
Speaker 1: percentage would be, but not all of them, you know.
Speaker 1: Uh so there isn't aren't many options to practice listening skills.
Speaker 1: Once I got addicted to your show, I started suggesting
Speaker 1: that my higher level students listen to you guys as well.
Speaker 1: Honestly didn't think many of them would actually go home
Speaker 1: and start listening. However, I was wrong and this isn't
Speaker 1: all caps. Every single one of them are now addicted
Speaker 1: like me and then back to regular non all caps. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so thanks guys. Uh, my students want me to send
Speaker 1: an email to say thank you for speaking slow but
Speaker 1: not too slow, and using vocabulary that makes any topic
Speaker 1: of science, astrophysics, biology and history easy to understand. I've
Speaker 1: noticed a big change in their listening skills and even
Speaker 1: have the entertainment of teaching some puns and slang that
Speaker 1: you both say on the show. It makes class much
Speaker 1: more enjoyable. The only bad side is now they want
Speaker 1: a tour of the UK so we can all come
Speaker 1: to see you guys live. That's so cool. See everybody
Speaker 1: in the United States. Oh, you guys aren't coming to St. Louis.
Speaker 1: It can't possibly come to you. People are talking about
Speaker 1: traveling from Spain to England to see Yes. Seriously, come on,
Speaker 1: don't go to Milwaukee. I'm in Madison. Uh, keep on
Speaker 1: showing out this podcast and garzias Porto Hostelwego. Amy culver Amy.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that. I love that email. Let's email
Speaker 1: uh asta le vista to your class. Thank you very
Speaker 1: much for writing in UM and uh, that's wonderful. I
Speaker 1: hope you guys keep listening. We're known for us slang,
Speaker 1: aren't we get on the trolley? Chuck? Yeah, that old thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us to
Speaker 1: say hi in another language, that's cool. But like Chuck said,
Speaker 1: we want to hear from you if you have a
Speaker 1: novel biological effect or and get stared at and what
Speaker 1: you do in dealing with that. UM. You can tweak
Speaker 1: to us at s y s K podcast. You can
Speaker 1: join us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 1: You can send us an email to Stuff podcast at
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com and has always joined us
Speaker 1: at our home on the web. Stuff you Should Know
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