1 00:00:04,360 --> 00:00:07,560 Speaker 1: The woods grew thicker and more rampant as we went on, 2 00:00:08,119 --> 00:00:11,399 Speaker 1: and the road, though paved with granite slabs, was more 3 00:00:11,400 --> 00:00:16,600 Speaker 1: and more overgrown, for trees had rooted themselves in the interstices, 4 00:00:17,040 --> 00:00:21,680 Speaker 1: often forcing the wide blocks apart. Though the sun had 5 00:00:21,720 --> 00:00:25,040 Speaker 1: not yet near the horizon, the shades that were cast 6 00:00:25,120 --> 00:00:28,920 Speaker 1: upon us from gigantic bowls and branches became ever denser, 7 00:00:29,600 --> 00:00:32,960 Speaker 1: and we moved in a dark green twilight, fraught with 8 00:00:33,040 --> 00:00:37,760 Speaker 1: oppressive odors of lush growth and of vegetable corruption. There 9 00:00:37,760 --> 00:00:40,720 Speaker 1: were no birds nor animals, such as one would think 10 00:00:40,760 --> 00:00:44,480 Speaker 1: to find in any wholesome forest, but it rare intervals. 11 00:00:44,520 --> 00:00:49,000 Speaker 1: A stealthy viper with pale and heavy coils glided away 12 00:00:49,040 --> 00:00:52,240 Speaker 1: from our feet among the rank leaves of the roadside, 13 00:00:52,720 --> 00:00:56,760 Speaker 1: or some enormous moth with baroque and evil colored mottlings 14 00:00:57,120 --> 00:01:02,480 Speaker 1: flew before us and disappeared in the nous of the jungle. Abroad. 15 00:01:02,560 --> 00:01:06,760 Speaker 1: Already in the half light, huge purpureal bats with eyes 16 00:01:06,840 --> 00:01:10,720 Speaker 1: like tiny rubies, arose at our approach from the poisonous 17 00:01:10,800 --> 00:01:14,560 Speaker 1: looking fruits on which they feasted, and watched us with 18 00:01:14,680 --> 00:01:18,639 Speaker 1: malign attention as they hovered noiselessly in the air above, 19 00:01:19,560 --> 00:01:22,480 Speaker 1: and we felt somehow that we were being watched by 20 00:01:22,680 --> 00:01:26,759 Speaker 1: other and invisible presences, and a sort of awe fell 21 00:01:26,840 --> 00:01:30,280 Speaker 1: upon us, and a vague fear of the monstrous jungle, 22 00:01:30,760 --> 00:01:34,320 Speaker 1: and we no longer spoke aloud, were frequently, but only 23 00:01:34,400 --> 00:01:43,479 Speaker 1: in rare whispers. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind 24 00:01:43,760 --> 00:01:52,880 Speaker 1: production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to 25 00:01:52,920 --> 00:01:55,760 Speaker 1: Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 26 00:01:55,840 --> 00:01:58,760 Speaker 1: Joe McCormick. And Robert, you selected such a wonderful reading 27 00:01:58,760 --> 00:02:01,200 Speaker 1: for us today. What is that for? Um? Well, you know, 28 00:02:01,240 --> 00:02:02,960 Speaker 1: I was. I was trying to think of a good 29 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:05,240 Speaker 1: a good reading that would tie into our topic today, 30 00:02:05,280 --> 00:02:08,079 Speaker 1: and I thought back to Clark Ashton Smith, one of 31 00:02:08,120 --> 00:02:10,200 Speaker 1: my really not only one, not one of my my 32 00:02:10,360 --> 00:02:13,480 Speaker 1: favorite author of the Weird Horror period. You can keep 33 00:02:13,520 --> 00:02:16,400 Speaker 1: your your love crafts and your Howard's h because Clark 34 00:02:16,400 --> 00:02:18,920 Speaker 1: Ashton Smith is all you need. This is from a 35 00:02:18,960 --> 00:02:24,040 Speaker 1: story titled The Tale of set Empra Zeros, and you 36 00:02:24,040 --> 00:02:26,520 Speaker 1: can find this in some of the key collections of 37 00:02:26,560 --> 00:02:30,560 Speaker 1: Clark Ashton Smith's work, but it's also online in its 38 00:02:30,720 --> 00:02:33,880 Speaker 1: entirety at Eldric Dark dot com. That's where you can 39 00:02:33,880 --> 00:02:35,800 Speaker 1: find a lot of his his his writings and his 40 00:02:35,840 --> 00:02:39,200 Speaker 1: poetry and all. But I particularly picked this out though, 41 00:02:39,200 --> 00:02:42,240 Speaker 1: because it it has this very familiar part of in 42 00:02:42,280 --> 00:02:44,800 Speaker 1: it that I think should familiar to feel familiar to 43 00:02:44,840 --> 00:02:47,760 Speaker 1: everyone who's ever watched a horror movie or even had 44 00:02:47,840 --> 00:02:51,200 Speaker 1: kind of a creepy feeling themselves, particularly if you're out 45 00:02:51,240 --> 00:02:53,320 Speaker 1: in the woods or in a strange part of town, 46 00:02:53,800 --> 00:02:57,400 Speaker 1: this feeling that something is watching you, right, And so 47 00:02:57,480 --> 00:03:00,400 Speaker 1: that's what we're gonna be talking about today, the feeling 48 00:03:00,639 --> 00:03:03,560 Speaker 1: of being watched. And we're gonna look at this from 49 00:03:03,600 --> 00:03:07,959 Speaker 1: a couple of different angles, from a real scientific investigation angles, 50 00:03:07,960 --> 00:03:12,760 Speaker 1: some possible pseudo scientific interpretations, and of course, you know, 51 00:03:12,960 --> 00:03:14,840 Speaker 1: we we just got to try out the horror movies 52 00:03:14,880 --> 00:03:18,919 Speaker 1: because this is one of the most common moments in 53 00:03:18,919 --> 00:03:22,720 Speaker 1: in a horror film. Uh. It's the moment when you 54 00:03:22,800 --> 00:03:25,520 Speaker 1: can tell, whether the character says it out loud or not, 55 00:03:25,960 --> 00:03:29,160 Speaker 1: that they feel eyes boring into the back of their 56 00:03:29,200 --> 00:03:31,360 Speaker 1: head or the back of their neck. I mean, this 57 00:03:31,400 --> 00:03:34,399 Speaker 1: brings to mind the Song of the Warrior by Scandal, 58 00:03:35,840 --> 00:03:39,040 Speaker 1: one of my favorites. You you you talk, talk, you 59 00:03:39,120 --> 00:03:42,600 Speaker 1: talk to me. Your eyes touch me physically, so good. 60 00:03:43,440 --> 00:03:46,640 Speaker 1: Which brings, you know, to mind of eyeballs actually touching 61 00:03:47,040 --> 00:03:50,360 Speaker 1: someone's body, but also this sort of idea that our 62 00:03:50,480 --> 00:03:53,720 Speaker 1: eyes like shoot out like like those of a cartoon 63 00:03:53,760 --> 00:03:57,160 Speaker 1: coyote and physically touch somehow that which they are viewing. 64 00:03:57,640 --> 00:04:00,240 Speaker 1: You know, there's another great song about touching eyeball, which 65 00:04:00,280 --> 00:04:03,160 Speaker 1: is that Peter Gabriel song. You know, he says, he's like, 66 00:04:03,200 --> 00:04:05,080 Speaker 1: I want to touch your eyes. I always thought that 67 00:04:05,120 --> 00:04:07,520 Speaker 1: was really funny. No, nobody else ever seems to think 68 00:04:07,560 --> 00:04:11,000 Speaker 1: that's funny. But I imagine just salty kind of stinging 69 00:04:11,080 --> 00:04:14,520 Speaker 1: fingertips going right there on the sclera. No, no, it's 70 00:04:14,520 --> 00:04:16,279 Speaker 1: fair as fair. If we're gonna make fun of Scandal 71 00:04:16,480 --> 00:04:18,720 Speaker 1: for for their lyrics, we're gonna make fun of the 72 00:04:18,720 --> 00:04:21,760 Speaker 1: great Peter Gabriel as well. Both of these great songs, though, 73 00:04:21,800 --> 00:04:26,480 Speaker 1: without a doubt. Another great song, though probably the greatest 74 00:04:26,480 --> 00:04:29,000 Speaker 1: song about the feeling of being watched though, comes to 75 00:04:29,120 --> 00:04:34,800 Speaker 1: us from Rockwell his synth funk single Somebody's Watching Me. 76 00:04:34,839 --> 00:04:37,960 Speaker 1: This is from four this head backing vocals by Michael 77 00:04:37,960 --> 00:04:41,400 Speaker 1: and Jermaine Jackson. You know the one, Joe, Oh yeah, yeah, 78 00:04:41,520 --> 00:04:45,080 Speaker 1: we we watched the music video. It's uh. I would say, 79 00:04:45,080 --> 00:04:48,279 Speaker 1: somewhat horror movie inspired. He there's like a shower scene. 80 00:04:48,320 --> 00:04:50,320 Speaker 1: It's where he gets in the shower and he's singing 81 00:04:50,320 --> 00:04:52,920 Speaker 1: the song at you while he's soaping up. Yeah, it's 82 00:04:52,920 --> 00:04:55,440 Speaker 1: not quite thriller, and it definitely didn't have the budget 83 00:04:55,480 --> 00:04:58,599 Speaker 1: of thriller, but it's it's a fun, fun music video 84 00:04:58,680 --> 00:05:01,280 Speaker 1: to look up and watch in this Halloween season. I 85 00:05:01,320 --> 00:05:03,800 Speaker 1: actually like the song. I think it's pretty good, uh 86 00:05:03,880 --> 00:05:07,000 Speaker 1: sort of spooky, uh pop funk kind of thing. Yeah, 87 00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:09,279 Speaker 1: I know I would with that without hesitation put it 88 00:05:09,320 --> 00:05:12,880 Speaker 1: on a fun Halloween mix. But of course it is 89 00:05:12,920 --> 00:05:16,080 Speaker 1: a mainstay of horror movies, and strangely enough, I wonder 90 00:05:16,120 --> 00:05:18,440 Speaker 1: what you think about this. I would say especially horror 91 00:05:18,480 --> 00:05:22,839 Speaker 1: movies that are set in the woods, where there's a 92 00:05:22,920 --> 00:05:27,360 Speaker 1: scene where you can tell something. Suddenly someone feels that 93 00:05:27,400 --> 00:05:30,520 Speaker 1: they are being watched even though they can't see anything 94 00:05:30,640 --> 00:05:34,240 Speaker 1: or anybody watching them. Absolutely Like when when you brought 95 00:05:34,279 --> 00:05:38,839 Speaker 1: this idea, I instantly thought of Friday thirteenth movies, and 96 00:05:38,839 --> 00:05:42,680 Speaker 1: I thought about teens walking around and then being stalked 97 00:05:42,720 --> 00:05:45,000 Speaker 1: by something unseen. But then I also had to stop 98 00:05:45,040 --> 00:05:48,360 Speaker 1: myself and realize that I wasn't really specifically thinking back 99 00:05:48,400 --> 00:05:50,839 Speaker 1: to Friday the thirteenth, I was thinking of that episode 100 00:05:50,839 --> 00:05:54,800 Speaker 1: of The Simpsons where Ernest borg nine takes all the 101 00:05:54,839 --> 00:05:57,839 Speaker 1: campers and they wind up at what is supposed to 102 00:05:57,839 --> 00:06:02,960 Speaker 1: be Crystal Lake and Jason Vorhees is presumably stalking them. Yeah, 103 00:06:03,160 --> 00:06:06,840 Speaker 1: it's often accomplished in the movies with with camera work actually, 104 00:06:06,880 --> 00:06:10,080 Speaker 1: like it sort of puts you suddenly in the point 105 00:06:10,080 --> 00:06:13,320 Speaker 1: of view of the stalker, the monster, the killer, which 106 00:06:13,360 --> 00:06:15,400 Speaker 1: can be can feel kind of seedy and creepy, and 107 00:06:15,520 --> 00:06:18,600 Speaker 1: especially the seed here and creepier horror films, because there's 108 00:06:18,640 --> 00:06:22,560 Speaker 1: this sense of, um, you're you're suddenly playing the voyeur, 109 00:06:23,240 --> 00:06:26,360 Speaker 1: and not only the the voyor, but the predatory voyer. 110 00:06:26,839 --> 00:06:29,919 Speaker 1: You know, as you're stalking some you know, new Bile 111 00:06:30,080 --> 00:06:32,680 Speaker 1: victim or something. It can feel a bit creepy. But 112 00:06:32,720 --> 00:06:34,760 Speaker 1: I guess some of those films you're kind of supposed 113 00:06:34,760 --> 00:06:37,880 Speaker 1: to feel creepy watching them. Yeah. Well, it's also I 114 00:06:37,880 --> 00:06:39,960 Speaker 1: guess part of the visual language of the horror movie 115 00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:42,560 Speaker 1: that often it's not set out loud, you know. The 116 00:06:42,560 --> 00:06:45,960 Speaker 1: Clark Ashton Smith story has a narrator who can actually 117 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:49,159 Speaker 1: say we felt we were being watched, But in the movies. 118 00:06:49,279 --> 00:06:53,160 Speaker 1: The idea is often conveyed without dialogue. It's just that, 119 00:06:53,520 --> 00:06:56,320 Speaker 1: you know, Tina's wandering through the forest at night, and 120 00:06:56,360 --> 00:07:00,720 Speaker 1: then there's a certain sort of sequence of actions. She pauses, 121 00:07:01,160 --> 00:07:05,080 Speaker 1: she looks over her shoulder cautiously, she listens, you know, 122 00:07:05,120 --> 00:07:07,440 Speaker 1: she kind of turns her head to hear the sounds 123 00:07:07,480 --> 00:07:10,640 Speaker 1: of the forest, as if Tina senses that she's being 124 00:07:10,640 --> 00:07:16,120 Speaker 1: observed without being able to see the observer. And the 125 00:07:16,160 --> 00:07:19,520 Speaker 1: weird thing is, we never really stopped to question that 126 00:07:19,680 --> 00:07:22,360 Speaker 1: part of the narrative, do we. It's almost like you 127 00:07:22,480 --> 00:07:26,120 Speaker 1: just assume there is such a thing as a sixth 128 00:07:26,280 --> 00:07:29,960 Speaker 1: sense for being observed. You just it just feels natural 129 00:07:30,040 --> 00:07:32,200 Speaker 1: to say, like, oh, yeah, you can feel when somebody's 130 00:07:32,240 --> 00:07:35,360 Speaker 1: watching you. Yeah. Yeah. We we tend to to not 131 00:07:35,480 --> 00:07:39,720 Speaker 1: think it's something supernatural when we're watching these, even supernatural films, 132 00:07:39,720 --> 00:07:43,480 Speaker 1: Like we don't think of that as the supernatural element um. However, 133 00:07:43,520 --> 00:07:46,880 Speaker 1: I was looking around, thinking around for some some key 134 00:07:46,920 --> 00:07:51,600 Speaker 1: cinematic examples of this where it's like really expressed deliberately, 135 00:07:52,120 --> 00:07:54,320 Speaker 1: and the two that came to mind. One of them 136 00:07:54,400 --> 00:07:56,800 Speaker 1: is very much a supernatural event and the other one 137 00:07:56,840 --> 00:07:59,280 Speaker 1: is sort of implied that it might be so the 138 00:07:59,320 --> 00:08:04,040 Speaker 1: first one predator from there's this character Billy Soul I 139 00:08:04,080 --> 00:08:06,560 Speaker 1: think you probably remember him. He's one of the mercenaries. 140 00:08:06,880 --> 00:08:09,040 Speaker 1: He's uh, I think he's supposed to be half sue 141 00:08:09,680 --> 00:08:13,520 Speaker 1: Um and he feels the predator watching them like he's 142 00:08:13,560 --> 00:08:16,320 Speaker 1: the I can't recall if he's like the first one 143 00:08:16,320 --> 00:08:17,920 Speaker 1: to get this sense of the only one to get 144 00:08:17,920 --> 00:08:20,720 Speaker 1: this sense, but he somehow knows that they are being 145 00:08:20,800 --> 00:08:24,640 Speaker 1: hunted by this alien force. Another example this is one 146 00:08:24,680 --> 00:08:26,120 Speaker 1: from a from a book. I don't know that this 147 00:08:26,160 --> 00:08:28,840 Speaker 1: is reflected in the various film adaptations or not, but 148 00:08:28,960 --> 00:08:31,960 Speaker 1: I've found that in The Two Towers, there's a scene 149 00:08:31,960 --> 00:08:36,600 Speaker 1: where Sam since his Gallum quote, once looking suddenly back, 150 00:08:36,679 --> 00:08:38,960 Speaker 1: as if some prickle of the skin told him that 151 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:41,600 Speaker 1: he was watched from behind. He thought he caught a 152 00:08:41,600 --> 00:08:44,960 Speaker 1: brief glimpse of a small dark shape slipping behind a 153 00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:48,400 Speaker 1: tree trunk. That's really interesting because it mentions a prickle, 154 00:08:48,520 --> 00:08:50,280 Speaker 1: and that's gonna come up in some of the studies 155 00:08:50,320 --> 00:08:53,200 Speaker 1: we look at and and and again. Like you know, 156 00:08:53,240 --> 00:08:56,040 Speaker 1: there's a lot of magic going on. Uh. In the 157 00:08:56,040 --> 00:08:59,360 Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings, there's certainly some extrasensory perception but 158 00:08:59,600 --> 00:09:02,120 Speaker 1: generally we don't attribute that to Sam. Sam's about his 159 00:09:02,320 --> 00:09:04,560 Speaker 1: uh down to earth as you can ask for in 160 00:09:04,559 --> 00:09:07,360 Speaker 1: this novel. And that's kind of the point, right, Sam 161 00:09:07,400 --> 00:09:11,640 Speaker 1: does not have the palatineer powers. He is a gardener. Yeah. 162 00:09:11,640 --> 00:09:14,199 Speaker 1: I should also say that this apparently pops up in 163 00:09:14,240 --> 00:09:16,679 Speaker 1: a Twilight Zone episode one that I have not seen, 164 00:09:16,920 --> 00:09:20,400 Speaker 1: called stop Over in a Quiet Town. So if you've 165 00:09:20,400 --> 00:09:23,360 Speaker 1: seen it, let us know what you think. So I 166 00:09:23,400 --> 00:09:25,920 Speaker 1: wanted to talk about this today. The feeling that you 167 00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:28,800 Speaker 1: can tell when you're being watched through means other than 168 00:09:28,840 --> 00:09:31,640 Speaker 1: your normal sensory apparatus. I mean, obviously you can tell 169 00:09:31,640 --> 00:09:33,760 Speaker 1: if like you can see the person watching you, but 170 00:09:34,120 --> 00:09:36,960 Speaker 1: by means other than that, by say, a tingling at 171 00:09:37,000 --> 00:09:39,840 Speaker 1: the back of your neck or on your back. Uh. 172 00:09:39,880 --> 00:09:42,800 Speaker 1: And And it turns out this feeling is not just 173 00:09:42,840 --> 00:09:45,520 Speaker 1: something that we started to assume as natural when we 174 00:09:45,559 --> 00:09:48,960 Speaker 1: started watching slasher movies in the early eighties. This is 175 00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:52,240 Speaker 1: something that has been investigated scientifically at least as far 176 00:09:52,280 --> 00:09:55,679 Speaker 1: back as the eighteen nineties. And there is a very 177 00:09:55,679 --> 00:09:58,960 Speaker 1: important early study on this, probably the first study, definitely 178 00:09:59,000 --> 00:10:01,280 Speaker 1: the earliest one I could find, and by the English 179 00:10:01,360 --> 00:10:06,120 Speaker 1: psychologist and Cornell University professor Edward Titchener, You ready to 180 00:10:06,240 --> 00:10:09,079 Speaker 1: jump into this study, Let's do it, okay. So the 181 00:10:09,120 --> 00:10:12,200 Speaker 1: study is called the Feeling of Being Stared At, and 182 00:10:12,240 --> 00:10:15,320 Speaker 1: it was published in Science in the year eight and 183 00:10:15,400 --> 00:10:19,360 Speaker 1: Tishner begins with a clear summary of the phenomena. He says, 184 00:10:20,120 --> 00:10:22,720 Speaker 1: every year I find a certain proportion of students in 185 00:10:22,800 --> 00:10:26,360 Speaker 1: my junior classes who are firmly persuaded that they can 186 00:10:26,559 --> 00:10:29,840 Speaker 1: feel that they are being stared at from behind, and 187 00:10:29,880 --> 00:10:33,760 Speaker 1: a smaller proportion who believed that by persistent gazing at 188 00:10:33,800 --> 00:10:36,000 Speaker 1: the back of the neck, they have the power to 189 00:10:36,200 --> 00:10:39,040 Speaker 1: make a person seated in front of them turn round 190 00:10:39,240 --> 00:10:42,080 Speaker 1: and look at them in the face. And he learns 191 00:10:42,120 --> 00:10:45,560 Speaker 1: from conversations with with these students that this is usually 192 00:10:45,559 --> 00:10:48,520 Speaker 1: believed to happen in crowded settings. And I think this 193 00:10:48,600 --> 00:10:52,200 Speaker 1: is an interesting contrast to UH. In the horror movies, 194 00:10:52,280 --> 00:10:55,440 Speaker 1: we often see it deployed in very lonely settings, say 195 00:10:55,440 --> 00:10:58,600 Speaker 1: when a character is is moving by themselves through a 196 00:10:58,640 --> 00:11:02,280 Speaker 1: forest at night or something. But Tishner says it's most 197 00:11:02,320 --> 00:11:05,400 Speaker 1: often mentioned in the context of being in church or 198 00:11:05,480 --> 00:11:08,920 Speaker 1: in a classroom, or a public hallway or an assembly 199 00:11:09,000 --> 00:11:11,760 Speaker 1: hall and so Tishner says, Okay, well, what does this 200 00:11:11,840 --> 00:11:14,360 Speaker 1: feel like? What is it like when somebody is looking 201 00:11:14,400 --> 00:11:16,840 Speaker 1: at you and you can and you can tell without 202 00:11:16,880 --> 00:11:21,079 Speaker 1: seeing them. Uh. Students describe the feeling as being uncanny, 203 00:11:21,120 --> 00:11:23,760 Speaker 1: of course, of course it's a little bit creepy, but 204 00:11:23,880 --> 00:11:27,320 Speaker 1: also as a feeling of must by which I believe 205 00:11:27,400 --> 00:11:31,840 Speaker 1: he means there's this irresistible, almost automatic impulse to turn 206 00:11:31,880 --> 00:11:34,760 Speaker 1: around and look behind you when you get this sensation, 207 00:11:35,559 --> 00:11:38,040 Speaker 1: but he says it's also sometimes described as having a 208 00:11:38,080 --> 00:11:42,080 Speaker 1: physical sensation in the body, like an unpleasant tension or 209 00:11:42,200 --> 00:11:46,120 Speaker 1: stiffness at the nape of the neck quote, sometimes accompanied 210 00:11:46,120 --> 00:11:49,880 Speaker 1: by tingling, which gathers in volume and intensity until a 211 00:11:49,960 --> 00:11:53,760 Speaker 1: movement which shall relieve it becomes inevitable. It is believed 212 00:11:53,760 --> 00:11:56,120 Speaker 1: that this stiffness is, in some way or other, the 213 00:11:56,240 --> 00:11:59,600 Speaker 1: direct effect of the focusing of vision upon the back 214 00:11:59,679 --> 00:12:03,920 Speaker 1: of the head and neck. So here's the phenomenon. Students 215 00:12:03,960 --> 00:12:06,840 Speaker 1: often described that they think they can either make other 216 00:12:06,880 --> 00:12:09,080 Speaker 1: people turn around by looking at their backs, or that 217 00:12:09,160 --> 00:12:11,520 Speaker 1: they can feel when someone is staring at the back 218 00:12:11,559 --> 00:12:14,520 Speaker 1: of their head. And sometimes this feeling has a physical 219 00:12:14,559 --> 00:12:19,080 Speaker 1: component it tingles back there. Yeah, and I certainly think 220 00:12:19,120 --> 00:12:21,600 Speaker 1: we can all think back on examples of this from 221 00:12:21,840 --> 00:12:24,600 Speaker 1: you know, certainly from from school, you know, any kind 222 00:12:24,600 --> 00:12:27,520 Speaker 1: of classroom environment you've been in where there is this 223 00:12:27,640 --> 00:12:29,760 Speaker 1: kind of uh. The way I often encountered was this 224 00:12:29,960 --> 00:12:32,720 Speaker 1: was this feeling that you should not stare at somebody, 225 00:12:32,720 --> 00:12:34,920 Speaker 1: even the back of their head too much in class 226 00:12:35,400 --> 00:12:37,559 Speaker 1: because they will know that you are staring, and then 227 00:12:37,559 --> 00:12:40,719 Speaker 1: they will turn around and you will be exposed as 228 00:12:40,720 --> 00:12:44,080 Speaker 1: a creepy staring person in a very in a video 229 00:12:44,120 --> 00:12:46,319 Speaker 1: game context, have you ever played one of those games 230 00:12:46,320 --> 00:12:48,360 Speaker 1: where there's a stealth thing and there's kind of a 231 00:12:48,360 --> 00:12:51,040 Speaker 1: meter that fills up as a as a character is 232 00:12:51,080 --> 00:12:53,600 Speaker 1: about to see you, and you have to not let 233 00:12:53,640 --> 00:12:57,000 Speaker 1: the meter fill up. That sort of correlates to something 234 00:12:57,000 --> 00:12:59,120 Speaker 1: in reality. It's like the longer you look at someone, 235 00:12:59,360 --> 00:13:02,160 Speaker 1: the meter is filling up, and eventually if it fills up, 236 00:13:02,200 --> 00:13:07,040 Speaker 1: they'll whip around and look right at you. Am I wrong? No? No, 237 00:13:07,120 --> 00:13:09,000 Speaker 1: that's that's this is this is right? And I think 238 00:13:09,040 --> 00:13:11,280 Speaker 1: the key thing is it's not that they will look 239 00:13:11,360 --> 00:13:13,640 Speaker 1: right at you when they turn around while you're staring 240 00:13:13,679 --> 00:13:16,840 Speaker 1: at them. The key question is, is there's something about 241 00:13:16,880 --> 00:13:20,880 Speaker 1: you staring at them that is making them turn around right, right, 242 00:13:21,320 --> 00:13:22,960 Speaker 1: And we will get into a lot of this as 243 00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:26,480 Speaker 1: we proceed here. Yes, And so Tishner argues that this 244 00:13:26,520 --> 00:13:29,880 Speaker 1: belief is not correct, that it is uh, that it 245 00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:32,880 Speaker 1: is a false impression that you can feel the gaze 246 00:13:32,960 --> 00:13:36,319 Speaker 1: of others, but that it is based on the foundation 247 00:13:36,360 --> 00:13:38,800 Speaker 1: of a number of psychological realities. And in the rest 248 00:13:38,840 --> 00:13:41,880 Speaker 1: of the paper he presents an argument based on natural 249 00:13:41,880 --> 00:13:45,720 Speaker 1: phenomena to explain why people so often think they're having 250 00:13:45,760 --> 00:13:50,040 Speaker 1: this experience. And so Tisner's explanation goes like this. First 251 00:13:50,040 --> 00:13:54,160 Speaker 1: of all, he says, people are clearly nervous about their backs, 252 00:13:54,760 --> 00:13:57,319 Speaker 1: and there are a number of observations you can make 253 00:13:57,360 --> 00:14:00,760 Speaker 1: to confirm this. First of all, imagine a big audience 254 00:14:00,800 --> 00:14:03,880 Speaker 1: gathering in a lecture hall to listen to, you know, 255 00:14:04,160 --> 00:14:07,319 Speaker 1: a defense of the existence of the luminiferous ether. Right, 256 00:14:07,960 --> 00:14:09,960 Speaker 1: you have maybe a dozen rows of students who are 257 00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:12,680 Speaker 1: seated in front of you. Just imagine sitting down and 258 00:14:12,720 --> 00:14:14,520 Speaker 1: watching the students in front of you. What do they 259 00:14:14,559 --> 00:14:17,400 Speaker 1: do when they sit down, Well, very often you'll notice 260 00:14:17,440 --> 00:14:20,840 Speaker 1: them kind of checking and attending to their backs, so 261 00:14:21,120 --> 00:14:24,280 Speaker 1: they're aware of people sitting behind them looking at them, so, 262 00:14:24,400 --> 00:14:26,840 Speaker 1: Tititioner writes, quote, you will notice that a great many 263 00:14:26,880 --> 00:14:30,200 Speaker 1: women are continually placing their hands to their heads, smoothing 264 00:14:30,200 --> 00:14:33,000 Speaker 1: and patting their hair, and every now and again glancing 265 00:14:33,000 --> 00:14:35,640 Speaker 1: at their shoulders or over their shoulders to their backs, 266 00:14:35,680 --> 00:14:38,480 Speaker 1: while many of the men will frequently glance at or 267 00:14:38,520 --> 00:14:42,200 Speaker 1: over their shoulders and make padding or brushing movements with 268 00:14:42,240 --> 00:14:45,920 Speaker 1: the hand upon lapel and coat collar. And obviously this 269 00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:48,200 Speaker 1: is going to vary from person to person, but it 270 00:14:48,200 --> 00:14:50,680 Speaker 1: appears to be extremely common. When you know people are 271 00:14:50,720 --> 00:14:53,080 Speaker 1: looking at your back, you start kind of fixing up 272 00:14:53,120 --> 00:14:56,800 Speaker 1: your back, right, Yeah, yeah, I mean, certainly posture comes 273 00:14:56,840 --> 00:14:59,400 Speaker 1: to mind. You know. Um, I feel like if I 274 00:14:59,440 --> 00:15:01,480 Speaker 1: know that an back is being stared at, I'm gonna 275 00:15:01,520 --> 00:15:03,680 Speaker 1: be I'm gonna probably check in on my posture and 276 00:15:03,680 --> 00:15:06,240 Speaker 1: make sure that I am seated correctly, you know, Yeah, 277 00:15:06,360 --> 00:15:09,120 Speaker 1: make it more self conscious, make sure you're not doing 278 00:15:09,160 --> 00:15:12,680 Speaker 1: the plumber. But also, by the way, I've never seen 279 00:15:12,720 --> 00:15:15,000 Speaker 1: any convincing evidence that the butt hanging out of the 280 00:15:15,000 --> 00:15:17,800 Speaker 1: pants is more common in plumbers than in other professions. 281 00:15:17,840 --> 00:15:21,480 Speaker 1: I think that may be unfair to plumbers. Yes, but 282 00:15:21,560 --> 00:15:24,400 Speaker 1: Tishner also mentions a friend of his who quote learned 283 00:15:24,440 --> 00:15:28,000 Speaker 1: to dance after he had arrived at Man's Estate. I 284 00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:30,120 Speaker 1: had to look that up. But Man's Estate, it just 285 00:15:30,160 --> 00:15:32,400 Speaker 1: means he only learned to dance once he was already 286 00:15:32,400 --> 00:15:36,200 Speaker 1: a full grown adult. But he so he this guy 287 00:15:36,280 --> 00:15:40,880 Speaker 1: was almost physically unable to bear the pain of turning 288 00:15:40,960 --> 00:15:44,680 Speaker 1: his back to his instructor while the instructor was watching him, 289 00:15:44,800 --> 00:15:48,280 Speaker 1: and then concurrently he felt this extreme relief at the 290 00:15:48,280 --> 00:15:51,240 Speaker 1: inverse when the instructor would turn around and turn his 291 00:15:51,280 --> 00:15:54,040 Speaker 1: back to Tishner's friend, It's like he could come up 292 00:15:54,040 --> 00:15:57,960 Speaker 1: for air. And Tishner also mentions the discomfort that many 293 00:15:58,080 --> 00:16:01,240 Speaker 1: lecturers feel when they have to turn their backs on 294 00:16:01,280 --> 00:16:04,120 Speaker 1: the classroom or audience in order to write something on 295 00:16:04,160 --> 00:16:07,200 Speaker 1: the chalkboard. And I remember this feeling from being in 296 00:16:07,200 --> 00:16:09,880 Speaker 1: front of a class. It's very uncomfortable whenever you turn 297 00:16:09,920 --> 00:16:12,240 Speaker 1: your back on the audience or the classroom to write. 298 00:16:12,680 --> 00:16:15,080 Speaker 1: It's again, it's kind of like going under water. You 299 00:16:15,120 --> 00:16:17,200 Speaker 1: can sort of like come back up for air once 300 00:16:17,200 --> 00:16:20,520 Speaker 1: you turn back around to face them again. But also 301 00:16:20,560 --> 00:16:23,160 Speaker 1: I mean things that are common to everyday experience. Where 302 00:16:23,160 --> 00:16:25,360 Speaker 1: do most people want to sit in a restaurant and 303 00:16:25,480 --> 00:16:27,280 Speaker 1: you know at a table with their back to the 304 00:16:27,280 --> 00:16:28,960 Speaker 1: door or in the middle of the room. Well, of 305 00:16:28,960 --> 00:16:31,160 Speaker 1: course not know. Most people want to sit like at 306 00:16:31,160 --> 00:16:33,280 Speaker 1: a booth or a table with their back to the wall. 307 00:16:33,760 --> 00:16:35,920 Speaker 1: Where did nervous kids at a party want to hang 308 00:16:35,920 --> 00:16:37,720 Speaker 1: out there at the edge of the room with their 309 00:16:37,760 --> 00:16:40,800 Speaker 1: back to the wall. Yeah, the wall is generally the 310 00:16:40,800 --> 00:16:43,480 Speaker 1: place to be. Um. Now that being said, I don't 311 00:16:43,480 --> 00:16:45,160 Speaker 1: want to be trapped at the back of the restaurant either. 312 00:16:45,160 --> 00:16:46,920 Speaker 1: I don't want to be like the middle person in 313 00:16:46,960 --> 00:16:49,440 Speaker 1: a booth, you know, the big circular booth like that. 314 00:16:49,720 --> 00:16:51,960 Speaker 1: That in a way for me, is worse than being 315 00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:53,800 Speaker 1: in the middle of the room, but still not be 316 00:16:53,960 --> 00:16:56,440 Speaker 1: as bad as if you were seated very close to 317 00:16:56,480 --> 00:16:58,360 Speaker 1: the door with your back to the door. That would, 318 00:16:58,600 --> 00:17:01,160 Speaker 1: without a doubt be the worst. So yeah, it seems 319 00:17:01,240 --> 00:17:04,760 Speaker 1: totally clear that almost all of us, generally people are 320 00:17:04,840 --> 00:17:07,800 Speaker 1: nervous about their backs, and as Tisner points out, there 321 00:17:07,840 --> 00:17:12,200 Speaker 1: are extremely obvious phylogenetic reasons why people would be nervous 322 00:17:12,240 --> 00:17:14,760 Speaker 1: about their backs and uncomfortable with the idea of being 323 00:17:14,800 --> 00:17:18,879 Speaker 1: observed from behind. Our eyes face forward. Our anatomy is 324 00:17:18,920 --> 00:17:23,280 Speaker 1: a raid with mostly forward facing defensive equipment. Our backs, 325 00:17:23,359 --> 00:17:26,239 Speaker 1: of course, are vulnerable to attack. Yeah, you look at 326 00:17:26,240 --> 00:17:29,679 Speaker 1: many many what we would refer to as prey species, uh, 327 00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:32,440 Speaker 1: you know, are are going to have their eyes position 328 00:17:32,560 --> 00:17:35,440 Speaker 1: more towards the side of their skull, allowing for better 329 00:17:35,600 --> 00:17:39,480 Speaker 1: visual surveillance of the surroundings, while predatory species often have 330 00:17:39,920 --> 00:17:42,679 Speaker 1: more forward facing eyes. Though, of course, in all of 331 00:17:42,680 --> 00:17:44,879 Speaker 1: this we we still should not discount the importance of 332 00:17:44,920 --> 00:17:48,040 Speaker 1: other senses, and as always acknowledged that the sense worlds 333 00:17:48,040 --> 00:17:50,280 Speaker 1: of other animals are not identical to the sense worlds 334 00:17:50,280 --> 00:17:53,760 Speaker 1: of humans. For instance, the common house cat is both 335 00:17:53,760 --> 00:17:56,440 Speaker 1: predator and prey, and while it has those forward facing 336 00:17:56,480 --> 00:17:59,920 Speaker 1: eyes of a pure predator, it also has these high 337 00:18:00,040 --> 00:18:03,600 Speaker 1: howard ears that are essential to a cat since world, 338 00:18:03,840 --> 00:18:06,600 Speaker 1: and they're always listening, so you know, sometimes serving as 339 00:18:06,600 --> 00:18:10,040 Speaker 1: a kind of backward facing eye of the cat. So anyway, 340 00:18:10,240 --> 00:18:12,399 Speaker 1: this is not Tistioner's term, but I thought I should 341 00:18:12,400 --> 00:18:13,800 Speaker 1: have a term for it, just so we can refer 342 00:18:13,840 --> 00:18:16,000 Speaker 1: to it throughout the episode. I would call this general 343 00:18:16,000 --> 00:18:20,159 Speaker 1: type of nervousness dorsal anxiety. Right, it's the whatever the 344 00:18:20,240 --> 00:18:22,760 Speaker 1: back part of your you is, your back, the part 345 00:18:22,800 --> 00:18:26,560 Speaker 1: away from where your eyes face. There's there's nervousness about 346 00:18:26,640 --> 00:18:31,200 Speaker 1: that area. So then on too. Tistioner's next point. One 347 00:18:31,240 --> 00:18:34,359 Speaker 1: of the ways that this dorsal anxiety manifests in a 348 00:18:34,359 --> 00:18:37,800 Speaker 1: crowded rumor hall is in the tendency to look around 349 00:18:37,840 --> 00:18:42,879 Speaker 1: behind you. However, we are also nervous about being caught 350 00:18:43,080 --> 00:18:47,280 Speaker 1: displaying this dorsal anxiety too conspicuously. Right, You've got to 351 00:18:47,359 --> 00:18:50,679 Speaker 1: be cool about it. You don't wanna, you know, you 352 00:18:50,680 --> 00:18:53,480 Speaker 1: don't want to look like you are overly concerned about 353 00:18:53,480 --> 00:18:56,359 Speaker 1: who's looking at you or about the appearance of your back, 354 00:18:57,200 --> 00:19:01,639 Speaker 1: so Tistioner writes. Quote. Hence, there's often avoluntary continuation of 355 00:19:01,680 --> 00:19:05,800 Speaker 1: the original ideo motor movements, meaning looking behind you. Uh, 356 00:19:05,840 --> 00:19:09,840 Speaker 1: he continues, One looks around inquiringly, as if one we're 357 00:19:09,840 --> 00:19:13,360 Speaker 1: seeking for a special person or event, taking one's direction 358 00:19:13,520 --> 00:19:17,920 Speaker 1: from some chance, noise or falling seats or rustle of dresses, 359 00:19:18,320 --> 00:19:20,919 Speaker 1: letting one's eyes come to rest upon some patch of 360 00:19:20,960 --> 00:19:25,360 Speaker 1: intense color, etcetera, etcetera. The deals differ in different cases. 361 00:19:25,400 --> 00:19:28,560 Speaker 1: The general mechanism is the same. Observe that this is 362 00:19:28,800 --> 00:19:32,200 Speaker 1: entirely independent of any gaze or stare coming from behind. 363 00:19:32,760 --> 00:19:35,240 Speaker 1: So I think we're probably familiar with this too. Write 364 00:19:35,320 --> 00:19:38,160 Speaker 1: like you you nervously glance over your own shoulder because 365 00:19:38,160 --> 00:19:42,000 Speaker 1: you suddenly feel compelled to, but then you don't want 366 00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:43,800 Speaker 1: to look like that's what you're doing, so you also 367 00:19:43,880 --> 00:19:46,520 Speaker 1: just kind of look around so as you know, not 368 00:19:46,640 --> 00:19:50,480 Speaker 1: to look nervous or like you're looking at anything in particular. Yeah, 369 00:19:50,520 --> 00:19:52,680 Speaker 1: there's a I mean, one of the big things that 370 00:19:52,680 --> 00:19:54,199 Speaker 1: that we're going to keep coming back to it with 371 00:19:54,280 --> 00:19:57,240 Speaker 1: humans especially is just that we are very social animals. 372 00:19:57,359 --> 00:20:00,320 Speaker 1: We are we are communal, we we worked to together, 373 00:20:00,880 --> 00:20:03,600 Speaker 1: but there there's a very it's it's a very complex arrangement. 374 00:20:03,720 --> 00:20:07,400 Speaker 1: So it makes me think of say, a real backstagging 375 00:20:07,520 --> 00:20:10,000 Speaker 1: stabbing villain in uh, you know, a picture of a 376 00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:13,760 Speaker 1: book or something like that. Backstabbing villain has a lot 377 00:20:13,800 --> 00:20:17,440 Speaker 1: of dorsal anxiety because they know all about backstabbing, so 378 00:20:17,880 --> 00:20:20,440 Speaker 1: they they're perpetually afraid of being stabbed in the back. 379 00:20:20,520 --> 00:20:22,600 Speaker 1: But at the same time, they can't look like they're 380 00:20:22,600 --> 00:20:24,720 Speaker 1: afraid they're gonna be stabbing the back, because that's a 381 00:20:24,760 --> 00:20:27,240 Speaker 1: great way to get stabbed in the back. Yeah, you're 382 00:20:27,240 --> 00:20:29,399 Speaker 1: just inviting it at that point, So you gotta be cool, 383 00:20:29,480 --> 00:20:31,400 Speaker 1: you gotta just kind of like, Oh, yeah, I wonder 384 00:20:31,440 --> 00:20:33,199 Speaker 1: what the walls are doing right now. Oh, that's an 385 00:20:33,280 --> 00:20:36,760 Speaker 1: interesting thing up on the ceiling. Okay. Third part of 386 00:20:36,760 --> 00:20:40,560 Speaker 1: Tishnar's argument, what are the consequences of these dorsal anxiety 387 00:20:40,640 --> 00:20:44,320 Speaker 1: checks well. Tishner points out that quote, movement in an 388 00:20:44,400 --> 00:20:48,040 Speaker 1: unmoved field, whether the field be that of sight or hearing, 389 00:20:48,160 --> 00:20:50,760 Speaker 1: or touch or any other, is one of the strongest 390 00:20:50,840 --> 00:20:54,879 Speaker 1: known stimuli to the passive attention. We cannot help but 391 00:20:55,119 --> 00:20:58,760 Speaker 1: attend movement. So something moves, you naturally look at it. 392 00:20:59,080 --> 00:21:02,760 Speaker 1: So imagine you've got a classroom. Jimmy is sitting in 393 00:21:02,760 --> 00:21:05,520 Speaker 1: the front row and Gertrude is sitting in the back row. 394 00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:08,800 Speaker 1: If Jimmy starts moving his head around or starts to 395 00:21:08,880 --> 00:21:12,840 Speaker 1: turn around and look behind him, Gertrude's attention is naturally 396 00:21:12,840 --> 00:21:16,000 Speaker 1: going to be attracted to him by the movement. Then, 397 00:21:16,040 --> 00:21:18,480 Speaker 1: as he continues looking all around the room in order 398 00:21:18,520 --> 00:21:21,000 Speaker 1: to kind of be cool, he will tend to notice 399 00:21:21,040 --> 00:21:24,119 Speaker 1: Gertrude and probably other people as well, are staring at 400 00:21:24,240 --> 00:21:27,840 Speaker 1: him because he moved. But Jimmy is likely to believe 401 00:21:27,880 --> 00:21:30,560 Speaker 1: that the causality is reversed, not that people in the 402 00:21:30,640 --> 00:21:33,159 Speaker 1: room are looking at him because he's moving, but that 403 00:21:33,240 --> 00:21:35,560 Speaker 1: he felt the urge to look behind him because he 404 00:21:35,560 --> 00:21:38,919 Speaker 1: could somehow sense that the people were already looking, and 405 00:21:38,960 --> 00:21:40,800 Speaker 1: when he turned to check, what do you know they 406 00:21:40,840 --> 00:21:44,520 Speaker 1: were looking. Yeah, this this sounds sounds pretty valid to me. Now, 407 00:21:44,560 --> 00:21:47,280 Speaker 1: what about that physical feeling that some people report at 408 00:21:47,280 --> 00:21:50,119 Speaker 1: the base of the neck? Uh Tisner has an explanation 409 00:21:50,200 --> 00:21:52,960 Speaker 1: here too, and he believes that this is just a 410 00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:57,520 Speaker 1: result of the dorsal anxiety presenting psycho smatically. After all, 411 00:21:57,680 --> 00:22:01,359 Speaker 1: when people suddenly pay conscious attention into sensations and pretty 412 00:22:01,400 --> 00:22:04,159 Speaker 1: much any part of the body, it's not uncommon for 413 00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:08,240 Speaker 1: them to notice parasthesias that they didn't notice moments before. 414 00:22:08,760 --> 00:22:11,879 Speaker 1: So I want you to, at this moment now really 415 00:22:11,920 --> 00:22:15,840 Speaker 1: think about the instep of your right foot. What's touching 416 00:22:15,880 --> 00:22:19,520 Speaker 1: that right now? What sensations do you feel there? Is 417 00:22:19,560 --> 00:22:22,680 Speaker 1: it possible there's an insect or a spider crawling over 418 00:22:22,720 --> 00:22:26,119 Speaker 1: your foot right at this moment when we're prompted to 419 00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:28,840 Speaker 1: think like this, it's easy for many people to suddenly 420 00:22:29,040 --> 00:22:32,359 Speaker 1: feel an actual itching or tingling or numbness there. It 421 00:22:32,440 --> 00:22:35,359 Speaker 1: just kind of is a result of suddenly paying really 422 00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:38,320 Speaker 1: close attention to a part of your body. Yeah, or 423 00:22:38,920 --> 00:22:41,560 Speaker 1: the moment in the slasher film you're watching this Halloween 424 00:22:41,640 --> 00:22:45,240 Speaker 1: where some sort of relatable physical damage occurs to somebody. 425 00:22:45,320 --> 00:22:48,360 Speaker 1: So not a beheading or or a limb being chopped off, 426 00:22:48,400 --> 00:22:52,040 Speaker 1: but some sort of like fingernail violence, uh, you know, 427 00:22:52,160 --> 00:22:54,320 Speaker 1: or finger violence like that kind of thing. Like we 428 00:22:54,359 --> 00:22:56,840 Speaker 1: instantly we feel that, we watch it, we feel it, 429 00:22:56,880 --> 00:22:59,439 Speaker 1: we're thinking about it. We we we feel it on 430 00:22:59,480 --> 00:23:01,480 Speaker 1: some level in our body, and we're instantly aware of 431 00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:05,359 Speaker 1: those fingers, which it would feel feels like a related concept. Absolutely, Yeah, 432 00:23:05,560 --> 00:23:09,359 Speaker 1: So the mind can generate sensations in the body. Tisna writes, quote, 433 00:23:09,359 --> 00:23:11,880 Speaker 1: any part of the body will thus yield up its 434 00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:15,480 Speaker 1: quantum of unpleasant sensation, if only for some reason the 435 00:23:15,520 --> 00:23:18,879 Speaker 1: attention can be continuously held upon it to the exclusion 436 00:23:18,920 --> 00:23:22,720 Speaker 1: of other topics. And so evolved instinct causes us to 437 00:23:22,760 --> 00:23:26,680 Speaker 1: be frequently concerned about our backsides when they're exposed, and 438 00:23:26,760 --> 00:23:30,280 Speaker 1: as the mind turns consciously to the subject of our backs, 439 00:23:30,600 --> 00:23:35,040 Speaker 1: we sometimes feel physical sensations there. And then he goes 440 00:23:35,080 --> 00:23:37,360 Speaker 1: on to say that there's so there's this feeling of 441 00:23:37,480 --> 00:23:40,640 Speaker 1: must remember, the sudden compulsion to turn and look as 442 00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:45,000 Speaker 1: if it happens almost automatically, it's irresistible. And he says, well, 443 00:23:45,040 --> 00:23:47,320 Speaker 1: this is just no different than the feeling of must 444 00:23:47,440 --> 00:23:50,240 Speaker 1: that causes us to adjust our bodies in a chair 445 00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:53,600 Speaker 1: when the distribution of pressure is suddenly uncomfortable. It's just 446 00:23:53,680 --> 00:23:58,080 Speaker 1: a physical impulse. Now. Weirdly, Tishnar relegates the reports of 447 00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:01,919 Speaker 1: his empirical experiments to the very last paragraph of his article. 448 00:24:02,200 --> 00:24:05,320 Speaker 1: But he did indeed carry out experiments to test people's 449 00:24:05,359 --> 00:24:09,000 Speaker 1: supposed ability to detect being looked at, and he tested 450 00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:14,040 Speaker 1: this both with quote persons who declared themselves peculiarly susceptible 451 00:24:14,119 --> 00:24:17,760 Speaker 1: to the stair and with people who were peculiarly capable 452 00:24:17,880 --> 00:24:21,880 Speaker 1: of making people turn around. So as for the ability itself, 453 00:24:21,960 --> 00:24:25,840 Speaker 1: all of his experiments invariably returned a negative result. People 454 00:24:25,920 --> 00:24:28,520 Speaker 1: were not able to detect when they were being looked at, 455 00:24:28,680 --> 00:24:31,239 Speaker 1: nor were they able to cause people to turn and 456 00:24:31,280 --> 00:24:35,280 Speaker 1: look by gazing from behind. Despite how strong the feeling was, 457 00:24:35,359 --> 00:24:39,280 Speaker 1: there's just no evidence that it correlated with reality. However, 458 00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:43,560 Speaker 1: I will say Tishnar explicitly claims that these negative results 459 00:24:43,680 --> 00:24:48,880 Speaker 1: prove that quote his interpretation has been confirmed. I'd say 460 00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:52,919 Speaker 1: that's very bad analysis, sir, like I think Tishnar's explanation 461 00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:55,919 Speaker 1: is a very decent one. It is very strong on 462 00:24:55,960 --> 00:24:59,200 Speaker 1: its face, but you can't prove it just by disproving 463 00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:02,280 Speaker 1: the alternative. There could be other reasons people believe they 464 00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:05,639 Speaker 1: have this extrasensory power to detect the gaze of others. 465 00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:09,320 Speaker 1: You know, yeah, absolutely, But I mean I also agree 466 00:25:09,359 --> 00:25:12,840 Speaker 1: he makes an interesting case. Uh, you know, there's nothing 467 00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:16,400 Speaker 1: glaringly wrong with it, but yeah, there are other modes 468 00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:20,000 Speaker 1: that this could be taking place for you, so shame 469 00:25:20,040 --> 00:25:23,560 Speaker 1: shame titionary that you know, it doesn't work that way. However, 470 00:25:23,600 --> 00:25:25,679 Speaker 1: after that, he does go on to say something that 471 00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:28,800 Speaker 1: I feel very sympathetic to, which is quote, if the 472 00:25:28,800 --> 00:25:32,320 Speaker 1: scientific reader object that this result might have been foreseen, 473 00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:35,719 Speaker 1: and that the experiments were therefore a waste of time, 474 00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:38,399 Speaker 1: I can only reply that they seem to me to 475 00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:41,480 Speaker 1: have their justification in the breaking down of a superstition 476 00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:44,920 Speaker 1: which has deep and widespread roots in the popular consciousness. 477 00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:47,840 Speaker 1: And this is in line with one of my pet 478 00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:51,440 Speaker 1: annoyances in in how people react to science news, which 479 00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:55,359 Speaker 1: is when people react to the conclusion of some study 480 00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:58,440 Speaker 1: by saying, well, duh, I could have told you that 481 00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:00,520 Speaker 1: why did this need to be study? This is a 482 00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:03,479 Speaker 1: waste of time. I would like to counter the cinnamon 483 00:26:03,560 --> 00:26:07,000 Speaker 1: as strongly as I can. It is not a waste 484 00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:11,320 Speaker 1: of time to rigorously test ideas that might seem obvious 485 00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:13,600 Speaker 1: to you. And there are a couple of major reasons 486 00:26:13,640 --> 00:26:16,399 Speaker 1: for this. First of all, you should be skeptical of 487 00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:19,760 Speaker 1: conventional wisdom and of things that seem obvious to you. 488 00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:23,399 Speaker 1: Conventional wisdom and the things that seem obvious when subjected 489 00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:26,840 Speaker 1: to controlled testing often turn out to be wrong even 490 00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:29,600 Speaker 1: though they seemed obvious. And then the second part is 491 00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:34,360 Speaker 1: what seems obvious to you is not necessarily obvious to others. Absolutely, 492 00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:36,840 Speaker 1: I mean, especially if we are looking to build more 493 00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:40,200 Speaker 1: wisdom upon that conventional wisdom. You want you want the 494 00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:43,920 Speaker 1: foundation to be sound, you know, and uh and and uh. Yeah. 495 00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:46,200 Speaker 1: A lot of times there's a lot writing on top 496 00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:50,919 Speaker 1: of these conventional wisdoms culturally, socially, even at times like 497 00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:53,800 Speaker 1: scientifically like sometimes are what we think of as a 498 00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:56,880 Speaker 1: scientific understanding of of the world around us. If there's 499 00:26:56,880 --> 00:27:00,600 Speaker 1: some conventional wisdom kind of lodged in there, it can 500 00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:04,639 Speaker 1: make everything a little bit unsettled. Yeah, exactly, Tishner was 501 00:27:04,760 --> 00:27:07,840 Speaker 1: arguing that scientists should get in there, you know, not 502 00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:11,160 Speaker 1: just like hang back from questions that they deem kind 503 00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:15,400 Speaker 1: of below them. He says that rigorous experiments disproving people's 504 00:27:15,440 --> 00:27:18,959 Speaker 1: claims of telepathy do more to keep psychological science firmly 505 00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:24,960 Speaker 1: grounded in reality than would quote any aloofness however authoritative. However, 506 00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:30,240 Speaker 1: Tishnar's negative results did not dissuade subsequent researchers from investigating 507 00:27:30,280 --> 00:27:34,119 Speaker 1: the same phenomena. After all, one researchers report, of course, 508 00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:37,120 Speaker 1: is usually not enough to totally settle a question. So 509 00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:40,320 Speaker 1: what did other researchers find? Well, I think maybe we 510 00:27:40,320 --> 00:27:42,480 Speaker 1: should take a break, and then when we come back, 511 00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:45,240 Speaker 1: we can look at the work of one John Edgar Coover. 512 00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:51,680 Speaker 1: All right, we'll be right back. Thank thank alright, we're back. 513 00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:54,760 Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about j Edgar Hoover. No, no, no, no, 514 00:27:55,280 --> 00:27:59,720 Speaker 1: John Edgar Coover is very different. Okay, alright, different different 515 00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:02,399 Speaker 1: episod entirely ce O O V E R. I wonder 516 00:28:02,400 --> 00:28:04,760 Speaker 1: if jed Or Hoover thought that he could feel people 517 00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:08,399 Speaker 1: staring at the back of his head. Statistically, the answer 518 00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:10,960 Speaker 1: is yes, because more than half of people seem to 519 00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:14,600 Speaker 1: think they have this power. But so this research that 520 00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:17,600 Speaker 1: I'm about to talk about came fifteen years after Tishnar's 521 00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:21,040 Speaker 1: original study of of the feeling of being stared at. 522 00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:22,920 Speaker 1: And I got to say, I was not at all 523 00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:26,280 Speaker 1: acquainted with the story of John Edgar Coover before preparing 524 00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:28,960 Speaker 1: for this episode, but it led me down some very 525 00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:33,040 Speaker 1: fascinating and weird, interesting rabbit trails. And uh, I would 526 00:28:33,080 --> 00:28:36,280 Speaker 1: just say, Coover seems like a very interesting guy overall. Uh. 527 00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:38,680 Speaker 1: He was born in eighteen seventy two. He grew up 528 00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:41,760 Speaker 1: as a farm boy in Indiana, beginning college at the 529 00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:44,640 Speaker 1: age of twenty two and paying his way through school 530 00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:48,440 Speaker 1: by working long hours as a stenographer, a typeist, a printer, 531 00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:52,920 Speaker 1: and eventually a telegraph operator. So he's sending invisible messages 532 00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:56,600 Speaker 1: and pulses to distant shores. And later in life, Couver 533 00:28:56,720 --> 00:28:59,719 Speaker 1: wrote about the skills he acquired in these jobs. Quote, 534 00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:03,080 Speaker 1: one never knows when he may need skills or knowledge 535 00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:06,360 Speaker 1: once acquired. These traits seem to have pursued me during 536 00:29:06,400 --> 00:29:08,880 Speaker 1: my whole life. So I never had the time to 537 00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:15,440 Speaker 1: learn the social devices by which gentleman kill time. Dancing, cards, golf, lounging. 538 00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:19,160 Speaker 1: It just great. I always appreciate a good dig at 539 00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:23,520 Speaker 1: the gentleman um, but anyway, for his higher education, Coover 540 00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:27,120 Speaker 1: attended the State Normal School in Greeley, Colorado, and then 541 00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:30,360 Speaker 1: later he went to Stanford University, where Coover would end 542 00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:32,360 Speaker 1: up spending the rest of his career. He ended up 543 00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:35,680 Speaker 1: going into the burgeoning field of psychology. And I got 544 00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:38,720 Speaker 1: a bunch of my information about Coover's life from an 545 00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:42,960 Speaker 1: obituary by Franklin Fearing published when when Coover died in 546 00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:47,120 Speaker 1: ninety eight. So Coover had a passion for the subject 547 00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:51,360 Speaker 1: of education and teaching in psychology, and Fearing rights that 548 00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:54,920 Speaker 1: that Coover clearly understood that education had to consist of 549 00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:58,160 Speaker 1: awakening young minds, not just in the realms of knowledge, 550 00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:02,440 Speaker 1: but into quote clear under standing and good judgment. And 551 00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:05,120 Speaker 1: the sense of clarity and judgment I think comes through 552 00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:07,400 Speaker 1: in the other parts of his career, because Couper was 553 00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:12,800 Speaker 1: regarded as a very careful, almost perfectionist, skeptical researcher who 554 00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:16,360 Speaker 1: was a very hard worker, but who published relatively little 555 00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:19,000 Speaker 1: in his lifetime. And Fearing chalked some of this up 556 00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:22,360 Speaker 1: to a lifelong inferiority complex that might have been rooted 557 00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:25,000 Speaker 1: in in uh in his family life and where he 558 00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:29,040 Speaker 1: came from. But he was an early advocate of control 559 00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:32,080 Speaker 1: groups in psychological research, which of course is one of 560 00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:36,040 Speaker 1: the most crucial elements of modern experimental method and absolute necessity. 561 00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:37,880 Speaker 1: If you are a researcher and you don't want to 562 00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:40,840 Speaker 1: end up fooling yourself. Yeah, I mean, to a certain 563 00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:44,520 Speaker 1: extent faced with the alternative, a certain amount of an 564 00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:49,640 Speaker 1: inferiority complex is ideal in a scientific experiment. Uh. You 565 00:30:49,640 --> 00:30:52,920 Speaker 1: don't just blind optimism exactly right. So maybe some of 566 00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:56,800 Speaker 1: these personality attributes that kept him from being more ambitious 567 00:30:56,880 --> 00:31:01,040 Speaker 1: in his field actually made him a really good experimental scientist. 568 00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:04,280 Speaker 1: But it was around nineteen twelve, after Coover became a 569 00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:07,280 Speaker 1: fellow in psychology at Stanford, that an interesting and perhaps 570 00:31:07,440 --> 00:31:10,800 Speaker 1: unlikely focus would start to dominate a large part of 571 00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:16,120 Speaker 1: his career, and that was psychical research. Uh. Spirit medium's 572 00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:21,720 Speaker 1: psychic powers, telekinesis, telepathy. This was an odd focus because 573 00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:25,720 Speaker 1: by all accounts, couver was quite skeptical, but Fearing's obituary 574 00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:29,600 Speaker 1: explains this by by another character who enters the story here, 575 00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:34,120 Speaker 1: and that character is Thomas Welton Stanford, the brother of 576 00:31:34,600 --> 00:31:39,040 Speaker 1: the industrialist and Senator Leland Stanford, who was the founder 577 00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:42,480 Speaker 1: of Stanford University. So we got a we got a 578 00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:44,360 Speaker 1: friend of the founder here, I guess not a friend, 579 00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:48,680 Speaker 1: a a brother of the founder here, and Thomas Welton Stanford, 580 00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:53,040 Speaker 1: the brother of the founder, was a devout believer in spiritualism. 581 00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:56,480 Speaker 1: Thomas was more than willing to give a generous endowment 582 00:31:56,880 --> 00:31:59,800 Speaker 1: to the psychology department at Stanford to fund their re 583 00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:04,560 Speaker 1: search and by and subsequently Coover's research, as long as 584 00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:08,600 Speaker 1: the department would investigate and Thomas surely hoped prove the 585 00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:14,200 Speaker 1: validity of psychical phenomena and the great powers of spirit mediums. 586 00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:16,240 Speaker 1: So here we have a classic case of the guy 587 00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:18,960 Speaker 1: who shows up with the money saying like, look, I've 588 00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:22,200 Speaker 1: got something I really want you to look into. And 589 00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:24,640 Speaker 1: so the president of Stanford, in the chair of the 590 00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:29,480 Speaker 1: psychology department, took the money and then appointed the skeptical J. E. 591 00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:34,040 Speaker 1: Couver to head up the psychical research program. And according 592 00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:37,600 Speaker 1: to Fearing, Couver was not personally very interested in the 593 00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:40,880 Speaker 1: claims of psychics, but he considered his research a kind 594 00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:44,480 Speaker 1: of professional necessity, like okay, in order to fund my 595 00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:47,920 Speaker 1: studies in other areas such as learning and cognition. I 596 00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:51,000 Speaker 1: gotta I gotta do studies on psychics to make Thomas 597 00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:53,760 Speaker 1: Welton happy. But he's the perfect person to do it, because, 598 00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:57,200 Speaker 1: like we said, he's highly skeptical and he's he's something 599 00:32:57,200 --> 00:32:59,880 Speaker 1: of a perfectionist exactly right. So it actually I think 600 00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:02,760 Speaker 1: it turned out kind of to the best. Uh. And this, 601 00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:04,480 Speaker 1: this is what I'm about to talk about, is sort 602 00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:07,520 Speaker 1: of a tangent. But there's one near runnin that Couver 603 00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:09,480 Speaker 1: had with the medium that I was reading about that 604 00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:12,560 Speaker 1: is just too weird and funny not to mention. So 605 00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:14,680 Speaker 1: a lot of what I'm about the site comes from 606 00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:17,880 Speaker 1: an April two thousand article in The Village Voice by 607 00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:21,880 Speaker 1: a writer named Paul LeFarge, and Lafarge is talking about 608 00:33:21,880 --> 00:33:24,880 Speaker 1: Thomas Welton Stanford and says that while he was living 609 00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:30,360 Speaker 1: in Melbourne, he met an Australian medium named Charles Bailey. 610 00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:34,040 Speaker 1: Now Charles Bailey was famous around the world for producing 611 00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:37,320 Speaker 1: what we're known at the time as apports, that is, 612 00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:42,080 Speaker 1: introducing physical objects to the seance table. And these objects 613 00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:47,040 Speaker 1: had supposedly been transported into the room by some spiritual conveyance, 614 00:33:47,120 --> 00:33:51,080 Speaker 1: so the spirits would provide him with flowers or statuettes 615 00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:55,520 Speaker 1: or books, jewels, often even live animals like crabs or 616 00:33:55,520 --> 00:33:58,800 Speaker 1: small birds. Oh man, I wish I would see more 617 00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:01,440 Speaker 1: magic acts with live abs in them. We got tired 618 00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:03,680 Speaker 1: of bunny rabbits. Live crabs is where it's at. I 619 00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:06,360 Speaker 1: know the crabs. The crabs are gonna get really interesting 620 00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:09,239 Speaker 1: with this next allegation. Okay, because I want to read 621 00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:13,680 Speaker 1: something written about Charles Bailey by the rationalist writer Joseph McCabe. 622 00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:16,879 Speaker 1: I don't know if this accusation is true, but uh, 623 00:34:17,120 --> 00:34:20,160 Speaker 1: but I hope so. So this comes from McCabe's book 624 00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:24,399 Speaker 1: Is Spiritualism Based on Fraud from nineteen twenty, and he's 625 00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:27,800 Speaker 1: writing about Charles Bailey. He says, quote, he was taken 626 00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:31,759 Speaker 1: so seriously in the spiritualist world that Professor Ritchel, a 627 00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:36,359 Speaker 1: rich French inquirer brought him to France for investigation. Sure enough, 628 00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:39,600 Speaker 1: although he was searched, the spirits brought into the room 629 00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:44,360 Speaker 1: two little birds quote from India. But his long hesitations 630 00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:48,200 Speaker 1: and evasions had aroused suspicion, and on inquiry it was 631 00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:51,640 Speaker 1: proved that he had bought the birds, which were quite French, 632 00:34:52,080 --> 00:34:55,480 Speaker 1: at a local shop in Grenoble. How he smuggled them 633 00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:58,120 Speaker 1: into the room. Remember, McCabe says that he was searched 634 00:34:58,160 --> 00:35:02,040 Speaker 1: before the seance, can hinuing. I give the answer as 635 00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:05,600 Speaker 1: it is given by Count rochas his host, with reluctance. 636 00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:08,440 Speaker 1: But it is absolutely necessary to know these things if 637 00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:12,640 Speaker 1: you want to understand some of the more difficult mediumistic performances. 638 00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:16,160 Speaker 1: The birds were concealed in the unpleasant end of his 639 00:35:16,239 --> 00:35:22,279 Speaker 1: elementary canal the prison wallet. Oh man, I have to 640 00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:25,120 Speaker 1: pick up Mary Roach's Um Guts book to see if 641 00:35:25,200 --> 00:35:28,400 Speaker 1: because she has a whole chapter devoted up to to 642 00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:31,120 Speaker 1: this sort of thing. But I don't remember mention of 643 00:35:31,160 --> 00:35:34,879 Speaker 1: live animals per se live birds. This is really hard 644 00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:36,520 Speaker 1: to believe in a way. I mean, it's not like 645 00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:38,960 Speaker 1: I believe he actually produced them from the spirit world. 646 00:35:38,960 --> 00:35:41,000 Speaker 1: I I guess getting them in this way is more 647 00:35:41,040 --> 00:35:43,759 Speaker 1: likely than that, but I don't know. I'm not quite 648 00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:48,279 Speaker 1: sure how exactly this works with live birds. Well, but yeah, 649 00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:50,640 Speaker 1: I'm with you, and I'm being a little skeptical of this. Like, 650 00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:53,719 Speaker 1: no doubt he smuggled them in, but I mean the 651 00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:56,960 Speaker 1: ways of a gifted sleight of hand, uh performer. I 652 00:35:57,000 --> 00:36:00,200 Speaker 1: feel like it's unnecessary and and perhaps impractical to go 653 00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:03,600 Speaker 1: to those links when they could easily be you know, 654 00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:06,040 Speaker 1: deposited up the sleeve or something, or or in some 655 00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:11,239 Speaker 1: manner that still defies easy detection but are far easier 656 00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:14,160 Speaker 1: to produce. Yeah, so I'm gonna say I still got 657 00:36:14,200 --> 00:36:16,600 Speaker 1: a question mark by that one. But but I think 658 00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:19,320 Speaker 1: it is quite clear that, however he got these birds 659 00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:23,360 Speaker 1: and other things in Charles Bailey was absolutely a con artist, 660 00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:28,920 Speaker 1: and Thomas Welton Stanford loved Charles Bailey. He was enamored 661 00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:33,000 Speaker 1: of Bailey's powers to read from LeFarge quote. For twelve 662 00:36:33,280 --> 00:36:36,960 Speaker 1: years he paid Bailey to give weekly seances in his 663 00:36:37,040 --> 00:36:41,120 Speaker 1: office in the company of wealthy Melbourne businessmen, despite the 664 00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:43,239 Speaker 1: fact that Bailey had been in trouble with the law 665 00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:47,520 Speaker 1: several times in Australia and abroad for obtaining money under 666 00:36:47,560 --> 00:36:51,720 Speaker 1: false pretenses. So Bailey produced a ton of these things, 667 00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:55,200 Speaker 1: these apports for Thomas, many of which would end up 668 00:36:55,239 --> 00:37:00,000 Speaker 1: on display in a museum on Stanford campus. LeFarge lists 669 00:37:00,040 --> 00:37:03,359 Speaker 1: off some of these objects that that Bailey supposedly got 670 00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:06,799 Speaker 1: from the Spirit World quote. One box contains thousands of 671 00:37:06,840 --> 00:37:11,840 Speaker 1: small red seeds, another holds fish lures, and another contains 672 00:37:11,880 --> 00:37:15,200 Speaker 1: a cigarette case with a Japanese design, a lock of 673 00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:18,440 Speaker 1: a woman's hair, and a handful of twenty two caliber 674 00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:22,480 Speaker 1: shell casings. And then later here's one quote an item 675 00:37:22,600 --> 00:37:27,360 Speaker 1: listed in the catalog as fur bat implement of death, 676 00:37:29,320 --> 00:37:33,719 Speaker 1: which appears unfortunately to have been lost, which, oh man, 677 00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:36,319 Speaker 1: what a what a tragedy. I've got to know. What 678 00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:39,400 Speaker 1: is the fur bat? Well, it's an implement of death, clearly, 679 00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:41,960 Speaker 1: what is it? I mean, it brings them My first, 680 00:37:42,120 --> 00:37:44,600 Speaker 1: my mind first went to like some sort of weird 681 00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:47,759 Speaker 1: furry bat that might be actually made out of the 682 00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:51,600 Speaker 1: fur of another animal. But then I also thought, well, maybe, yeah, 683 00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:53,920 Speaker 1: maybe it is like a whiffle bat that's covered in 684 00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:58,920 Speaker 1: fur um, you know, and it's for killing people. I 685 00:37:58,920 --> 00:38:02,800 Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know. Out there in listener world, 686 00:38:02,800 --> 00:38:05,399 Speaker 1: if you know what the fur bat is, please contact us. 687 00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:09,200 Speaker 1: I've got to know. But then, so after this thing's 688 00:38:09,280 --> 00:38:13,000 Speaker 1: really came to a head because Stanford's president, David Starr 689 00:38:13,120 --> 00:38:17,319 Speaker 1: Jordan's assigned j. E. Couver to travel to Australia and 690 00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:20,400 Speaker 1: put Bailey's powers to the test. It's like the founder's 691 00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:23,560 Speaker 1: brother really believes in this guy. Couver, Will you check 692 00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:27,320 Speaker 1: him out? And Uh. To pick up with what LeFarge 693 00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:30,560 Speaker 1: rights quote, Charles Bailey must have known what was in store. 694 00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:34,799 Speaker 1: He happened to leave Australia before Couver showed up and 695 00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:37,879 Speaker 1: the tests were called off. So the threat of being 696 00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:41,040 Speaker 1: put under the microscope by Couver appears to have literally 697 00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:45,319 Speaker 1: made Bailey flee the continent. But sorry, I know that 698 00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:48,280 Speaker 1: was a long digression, but but I I couldn't stop 699 00:38:48,320 --> 00:38:50,120 Speaker 1: with that, So we got to come back to Coover's 700 00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:53,840 Speaker 1: actual research on the feeling of being stared at. This was, 701 00:38:53,920 --> 00:38:56,919 Speaker 1: of course one of the many psychical phenomena that we're 702 00:38:57,040 --> 00:39:00,360 Speaker 1: being studied and promoted by spirit mediums of the time, 703 00:39:00,719 --> 00:39:02,840 Speaker 1: and so it was one of the things that Couver's 704 00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:07,160 Speaker 1: psychical research program investigated, and so he published a paper 705 00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:09,960 Speaker 1: in the American Journal of Psychology called the Feeling of 706 00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:13,320 Speaker 1: Being stared At in nineteen thirteen. Again, this was fifteen 707 00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:16,920 Speaker 1: years after Tishnar's original paper. Uh. This paper was written 708 00:39:16,960 --> 00:39:18,640 Speaker 1: up in the New York Times when it came out 709 00:39:18,719 --> 00:39:21,800 Speaker 1: somewhat hilariously and with what appeared to me to be errors, 710 00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:24,640 Speaker 1: for example, getting the dates wrong on things. But I 711 00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:27,960 Speaker 1: love the way they introduced the subject. They write quote 712 00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:31,200 Speaker 1: probably a majority of persons have experienced the sensation of 713 00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:34,640 Speaker 1: being stared at from behind and turning the head have 714 00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:39,360 Speaker 1: actually detected the gazer. Until recently, psychologists have talked learnedly 715 00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:43,080 Speaker 1: about a vestigial third eye, which in the abyssom of 716 00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:46,800 Speaker 1: time belonged to the ancestors of man and might account 717 00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:50,920 Speaker 1: for the instinctive feeling. What well, I mean that instantly 718 00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:53,200 Speaker 1: brings to mind, you know, research into the you know, 719 00:39:53,440 --> 00:39:56,320 Speaker 1: the third eye, the penny old land and uh and 720 00:39:56,440 --> 00:39:59,680 Speaker 1: so forth, and the and the prietal eye and so forth, 721 00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:02,640 Speaker 1: But certainly none of that is positioned in the back 722 00:40:02,719 --> 00:40:08,080 Speaker 1: of the head. Yeah, I'm I'm a little confused about 723 00:40:08,120 --> 00:40:10,960 Speaker 1: what the This is an unsigned article in the Times. 724 00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:13,480 Speaker 1: I don't know who wrote this, but that's very funny. 725 00:40:14,160 --> 00:40:17,319 Speaker 1: But okay, So what was Coover's actual method in the study. Well, 726 00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:20,480 Speaker 1: first of all, they did a survey to find out 727 00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:23,440 Speaker 1: how common was the belief that people could feel being 728 00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:27,760 Speaker 1: stared at from behind uh and and the belief that crucially, 729 00:40:27,840 --> 00:40:29,839 Speaker 1: the belief that this feeling could be more or less 730 00:40:29,920 --> 00:40:33,799 Speaker 1: relied upon. And so for the the experimental portion, Couver 731 00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:36,719 Speaker 1: found ten students who all believed they had the ability 732 00:40:36,800 --> 00:40:39,160 Speaker 1: to tell when they were being stared at from behind, 733 00:40:39,840 --> 00:40:42,839 Speaker 1: and then he ran a hundred test rounds with each 734 00:40:42,880 --> 00:40:45,360 Speaker 1: of the ten subjects that went like this. The student 735 00:40:45,400 --> 00:40:48,120 Speaker 1: would sit with their back to the experiment or, who 736 00:40:48,200 --> 00:40:52,520 Speaker 1: was sometimes coover himself, sometimes other people, and the experimenter 737 00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:55,399 Speaker 1: would roll a die. If the die came up even 738 00:40:55,560 --> 00:40:58,520 Speaker 1: the experimenter would stare at the back of the student's head, 739 00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:01,240 Speaker 1: and if the role came up odd, they would look away. 740 00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:04,919 Speaker 1: Each time, the student had fifteen seconds to say whether 741 00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:07,200 Speaker 1: they thought they were being stared at or not. In 742 00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:11,240 Speaker 1: each case, Couver reported that the experiment or quote stared hard, 743 00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:15,919 Speaker 1: willing strongly that the three agent feel it. I guess 744 00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:18,120 Speaker 1: it is making me think on a James Bond frequency. 745 00:41:18,200 --> 00:41:22,440 Speaker 1: Made it made you feel it, did he. But in conclusion, 746 00:41:22,600 --> 00:41:25,480 Speaker 1: Couver found the following. So, First of all, the belief 747 00:41:25,560 --> 00:41:28,319 Speaker 1: that people are able to somehow detect being stared at 748 00:41:28,520 --> 00:41:32,400 Speaker 1: is indeed extremely common. I did a couple of surveys 749 00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:35,680 Speaker 1: in different classes about this. In one, sixty eight percent 750 00:41:35,760 --> 00:41:38,200 Speaker 1: of students agreed that they could tell when people were 751 00:41:38,239 --> 00:41:40,560 Speaker 1: looking at them from behind. In the second survey, in 752 00:41:40,600 --> 00:41:44,759 Speaker 1: a different class, it was eight six percent who said yes. Uh. 753 00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:48,800 Speaker 1: The second part is the experiments, again, like Tishner's, showed 754 00:41:48,880 --> 00:41:52,160 Speaker 1: this sensation to be groundless. People did not do significantly 755 00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:54,480 Speaker 1: better than chance at guessing whether they were being stared 756 00:41:54,480 --> 00:41:57,600 Speaker 1: at or not. The success rate was fifty point two percent. 757 00:41:58,200 --> 00:42:02,080 Speaker 1: And third, Couver offers a passable alternative to the explanation 758 00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:04,920 Speaker 1: that Tishner gave for the feeling, and that was basically 759 00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:09,239 Speaker 1: lying in the tendency for people to start to imagine 760 00:42:09,400 --> 00:42:14,280 Speaker 1: that their mental imagery represents something in reality. So people 761 00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:19,160 Speaker 1: who described picturing in their mind that the experiment or 762 00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:21,440 Speaker 1: was looking at them were more likely to think that 763 00:42:21,560 --> 00:42:24,839 Speaker 1: the experiment or was actually doing that, And so there 764 00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:27,120 Speaker 1: was there's just a tendency for people to kind of 765 00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:29,920 Speaker 1: wonder what's going on behind them and then imagine a 766 00:42:30,040 --> 00:42:33,239 Speaker 1: scenario and then start to think that that imagination is 767 00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:37,759 Speaker 1: somehow vertical, it's telling them something about what's happening back there. Yeah, 768 00:42:37,760 --> 00:42:39,719 Speaker 1: I mean a lot of it comes down to I think, 769 00:42:40,040 --> 00:42:43,080 Speaker 1: you know, the human imagination and it's it's basic role 770 00:42:43,520 --> 00:42:48,640 Speaker 1: in simulating possible futures. And once you've simulated a future 771 00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:52,040 Speaker 1: that is um certainly the one that is is possible, 772 00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:56,319 Speaker 1: um it it makes increasing sense to quickly update your 773 00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:59,719 Speaker 1: current model of reality to assure yourself that it does 774 00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:02,880 Speaker 1: not aligne with this simulation. Yeah, and I guess what 775 00:43:02,960 --> 00:43:05,439 Speaker 1: this all ultimately points to is just the basic fact 776 00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:08,880 Speaker 1: that it's it's better safe than sorry psychology. You know, 777 00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:11,840 Speaker 1: it's like assuming that you are being looked at from behind. 778 00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:15,040 Speaker 1: Is even if you're getting a lot of false positives 779 00:43:15,120 --> 00:43:18,080 Speaker 1: by often assuming that, you're gonna probably be safer in 780 00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:21,279 Speaker 1: the end if you assume that kind of thing a lot, right, 781 00:43:21,760 --> 00:43:23,800 Speaker 1: I mean, even if you're the guy in the crowded 782 00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:27,279 Speaker 1: room who's just going just like basically chasing his own 783 00:43:27,320 --> 00:43:29,520 Speaker 1: tail because he keeps looking over his back to make 784 00:43:29,520 --> 00:43:32,359 Speaker 1: sure nobody's stabbing him in the back, you know, still 785 00:43:32,640 --> 00:43:34,480 Speaker 1: people were probably not going to try and stab him 786 00:43:34,480 --> 00:43:36,719 Speaker 1: in the back because he's clearly so animated about this 787 00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:39,240 Speaker 1: whole thing. Like he's he's going to be a hard target. 788 00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:42,719 Speaker 1: But I will admit there are downsides. I mean, he's 789 00:43:42,760 --> 00:43:45,640 Speaker 1: also gonna have a harder time looking cool. Yeah, he's 790 00:43:45,640 --> 00:43:48,600 Speaker 1: gonna have a hard time doing anything. So like if 791 00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:51,640 Speaker 1: it's a James Bond scenario, like what does this guy do? Like, 792 00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:54,240 Speaker 1: is he gonna be an effective assassin or an effective 793 00:43:54,280 --> 00:43:57,760 Speaker 1: spy or an effective anything. If he's just only wound 794 00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:01,200 Speaker 1: up like so tightly in his own survive you know this. 795 00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:03,640 Speaker 1: This calls to mind another reason that I bet this 796 00:44:03,960 --> 00:44:06,600 Speaker 1: type of scene is really common in horror movies, where 797 00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:09,320 Speaker 1: the character looks over their shoulder and in the lonely 798 00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:12,319 Speaker 1: woods at night and thinks maybe that there's something they're 799 00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:15,200 Speaker 1: watching them. And I think one of the reasons this 800 00:44:15,320 --> 00:44:18,640 Speaker 1: happened so often in movies is just because it's one 801 00:44:18,840 --> 00:44:21,680 Speaker 1: step in the heightening of dramatic tension or the raising 802 00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:25,160 Speaker 1: of suspense. It's hard to build suspense when a character 803 00:44:25,480 --> 00:44:29,040 Speaker 1: is completely unaware that anything could be threatening them. I 804 00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:31,560 Speaker 1: mean that tends to lead to I don't know, a 805 00:44:31,680 --> 00:44:34,880 Speaker 1: different kind of way of viewing a threat in a 806 00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:37,760 Speaker 1: movie all it's more kind of ironic if the character 807 00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:41,120 Speaker 1: is completely unaware that there that something might be looking 808 00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:43,640 Speaker 1: at them. Um. I don't know about you, but I'm 809 00:44:43,680 --> 00:44:46,920 Speaker 1: now vaguely remembering another trope. And again, these moments are 810 00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:49,399 Speaker 1: just so I feel like they're so common. I it's 811 00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:52,399 Speaker 1: hard to actually think of specific examples, but I feel 812 00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:54,920 Speaker 1: like I've seen this one before near the woods or 813 00:44:54,960 --> 00:44:57,800 Speaker 1: in the woods, character has that feeling they're being watched. 814 00:44:58,080 --> 00:45:00,640 Speaker 1: They look back, they don't see a thing. Oh, if 815 00:45:00,640 --> 00:45:02,920 Speaker 1: they feel okay and they keep moving, then we go 816 00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:04,960 Speaker 1: back to the spot they were just looking at, and 817 00:45:05,040 --> 00:45:07,120 Speaker 1: what's creeping up around the shrubbery but some sort of 818 00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:11,000 Speaker 1: vicious monster or a maniac killer. Yeah. Yeah, it's the 819 00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:14,040 Speaker 1: saw tooth escalation of of suspense. It's you know, you're 820 00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:16,759 Speaker 1: the fake out, but then it's real, but then it's fake, 821 00:45:16,840 --> 00:45:19,719 Speaker 1: but then it's real even more placed the same kind 822 00:45:19,760 --> 00:45:22,560 Speaker 1: of role as a cat scare. Yeah, yeah, but in 823 00:45:22,600 --> 00:45:24,160 Speaker 1: a way it's kind of more subtle because it's like 824 00:45:25,080 --> 00:45:27,920 Speaker 1: it's saying, oh, you think you're safe, but you're not safe. 825 00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:31,240 Speaker 1: You know. It's actually you were right to check behind 826 00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:34,680 Speaker 1: you because there is a monster there, even if you 827 00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:37,279 Speaker 1: didn't see it. It's the one to where there's a 828 00:45:37,320 --> 00:45:39,680 Speaker 1: cat scare, and then you open the same closet door 829 00:45:39,760 --> 00:45:41,400 Speaker 1: that the cat just jumped out of in the second 830 00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:44,000 Speaker 1: time the monsters there or the monsters behind the closet 831 00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:47,360 Speaker 1: door in the other direction. Yeah. But okay, So anyway, 832 00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:50,239 Speaker 1: coming back to the research on the feeling of being 833 00:45:50,320 --> 00:45:52,319 Speaker 1: stared at, as we've got a couple of these these 834 00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:55,000 Speaker 1: early studies into this sensation, first by tition Er, then 835 00:45:55,040 --> 00:45:58,719 Speaker 1: by Couver that found no vertical perceptive effect at all. 836 00:45:59,040 --> 00:46:03,080 Speaker 1: But more recently, a number of researchers who advocate various 837 00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:07,960 Speaker 1: forms of psychic powers and extrasensory perception have continued research 838 00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:10,799 Speaker 1: into the psychic staring effect, which is what they often 839 00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:13,840 Speaker 1: call it, and they have sometimes claimed to have found 840 00:46:13,920 --> 00:46:18,359 Speaker 1: positive results, but of course mainstream researchers are skeptical. I'm 841 00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:21,000 Speaker 1: not going to run through all of the later parapsychology 842 00:46:21,080 --> 00:46:23,759 Speaker 1: studies that reported positive results. I just want to pick 843 00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:26,840 Speaker 1: one example to talk about briefly, and that is that 844 00:46:27,000 --> 00:46:30,120 Speaker 1: one of the researchers who claims to have contradicted these 845 00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:34,719 Speaker 1: early studies by Tishnarancouver on psychic staring detection is the 846 00:46:34,880 --> 00:46:39,640 Speaker 1: English parapsychologist author Rupert shell Drake. Shell Drake is very 847 00:46:39,719 --> 00:46:43,360 Speaker 1: well known in various paranormal circles. He's sort of a 848 00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:46,480 Speaker 1: titan of this domain. He advocates all kinds of psychic 849 00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:50,120 Speaker 1: and paranormal phenomena, often under the shadow of a big 850 00:46:50,239 --> 00:46:55,120 Speaker 1: hypothesis that he calls morphic resonance, which, uh, I'm probably 851 00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:58,880 Speaker 1: not fully doing justice too, but basically claims that some 852 00:46:59,200 --> 00:47:02,600 Speaker 1: types of men tool phenomena are not confined to brains 853 00:47:02,840 --> 00:47:04,960 Speaker 1: and they can kind of spread around the world and 854 00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:08,080 Speaker 1: across time. One quote I found says, quote, it's the 855 00:47:08,239 --> 00:47:13,560 Speaker 1: idea of mysterious telepathy type interconnections between organisms and of 856 00:47:13,760 --> 00:47:18,560 Speaker 1: collective memories within species. Okay, so so it's the force 857 00:47:18,680 --> 00:47:21,640 Speaker 1: basically kind of. Yeah, it's it's very similar to the force. 858 00:47:22,320 --> 00:47:25,640 Speaker 1: And so shell Drake, among many things, has been interested 859 00:47:25,680 --> 00:47:27,520 Speaker 1: in the idea that you can tell when you're being 860 00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:30,160 Speaker 1: looked at, even from behind. And so I was reading 861 00:47:30,200 --> 00:47:33,400 Speaker 1: a two thousand five Scientific American article by Michael Schermer 862 00:47:33,480 --> 00:47:37,360 Speaker 1: that examines shell Drake's claims about the psychic staring effect. 863 00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:41,080 Speaker 1: Uh so, what what does shel Drake claim about it? Well, 864 00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:44,320 Speaker 1: he says, quote vision may involve a two way process, 865 00:47:44,880 --> 00:47:48,680 Speaker 1: an inward movement of light and an outward projection of 866 00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:53,520 Speaker 1: mental images. And shell Drake ended up crowdsourcing a lot 867 00:47:53,600 --> 00:47:55,800 Speaker 1: of research back in the early days of the Internet, 868 00:47:55,920 --> 00:47:59,200 Speaker 1: very early for crowdsourcing. So he backed up his claims 869 00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:02,160 Speaker 1: about the psychic staring effect by saying that it was 870 00:48:02,239 --> 00:48:06,440 Speaker 1: confirmed by thousands of reports from people who downloaded an 871 00:48:06,480 --> 00:48:10,080 Speaker 1: experimental protocol from his web page, and he said that 872 00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:14,240 Speaker 1: these quote have given positive, repeatable and highly significant results, 873 00:48:14,600 --> 00:48:17,960 Speaker 1: implying that there is indeed a widespread sensitivity to being 874 00:48:18,040 --> 00:48:21,359 Speaker 1: stared at from behind. UH. It should go without saying 875 00:48:21,440 --> 00:48:24,279 Speaker 1: this immediately raises some questions about the quality of the 876 00:48:24,360 --> 00:48:27,920 Speaker 1: reported results UH, and Shermer goes on to offer a 877 00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:30,920 Speaker 1: whole list of reasons why he thinks it's that we 878 00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:34,520 Speaker 1: should doubt shel Drake's results, including the following reason. So, 879 00:48:34,640 --> 00:48:38,120 Speaker 1: first of all, there was a replication attempt by by 880 00:48:38,160 --> 00:48:42,280 Speaker 1: academic researchers in the year two thousand. A team including 881 00:48:42,680 --> 00:48:46,720 Speaker 1: John Colewell of Middlesex University in England used shel Drake's 882 00:48:46,760 --> 00:48:51,480 Speaker 1: protocol and recorded the results UH quote. Twelve volunteers participated 883 00:48:51,520 --> 00:48:55,400 Speaker 1: in twelve sequences of twenty stare or no stare trials 884 00:48:55,520 --> 00:48:59,840 Speaker 1: each and received accuracy feedback for the final nine session, 885 00:49:00,640 --> 00:49:04,239 Speaker 1: and interestingly, they found there was a measurable effect, but 886 00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:08,080 Speaker 1: only for the sessions where the subjects were getting feedback 887 00:49:08,239 --> 00:49:11,560 Speaker 1: on their accuracy. So if they were told whether they 888 00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:14,320 Speaker 1: were getting it right or wrong as they went, suddenly 889 00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:16,959 Speaker 1: they started doing a little better than they were doing 890 00:49:17,120 --> 00:49:19,560 Speaker 1: when they were not being told this better than chance. 891 00:49:20,040 --> 00:49:22,960 Speaker 1: So what could explain this? Well, Cole Well had an 892 00:49:22,960 --> 00:49:27,320 Speaker 1: answer here quote when the subjects were getting active feedback, 893 00:49:27,520 --> 00:49:30,520 Speaker 1: they were adapting to what was in fact a non 894 00:49:30,800 --> 00:49:35,600 Speaker 1: random sequence of stair and no staircases. Uh. And so 895 00:49:35,920 --> 00:49:38,719 Speaker 1: this is another important reminder that people are just not 896 00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:41,279 Speaker 1: as good as we think we are at coming up 897 00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:44,320 Speaker 1: with truly random sequences on the fly. You've got to 898 00:49:44,400 --> 00:49:48,000 Speaker 1: use some kind of objective generator, like a die or something, 899 00:49:48,520 --> 00:49:52,440 Speaker 1: or you will end up producing sequences that have unconscious patterns. 900 00:49:52,600 --> 00:49:55,719 Speaker 1: For example, when people try on purpose to come up 901 00:49:55,719 --> 00:49:59,799 Speaker 1: with random sequences of of yes no binary options, they 902 00:50:00,120 --> 00:50:04,000 Speaker 1: up alternating too much. They don't generate enough streaks of 903 00:50:04,120 --> 00:50:07,640 Speaker 1: the same value in their sequences, and these patterns are 904 00:50:07,680 --> 00:50:11,919 Speaker 1: often detectable by others. Yeah, this instantly makes me think 905 00:50:12,040 --> 00:50:14,000 Speaker 1: of Dungeons and Dragons. I don't know if you've had 906 00:50:14,040 --> 00:50:16,480 Speaker 1: this experience, Joe. I know you've been playing recently, But 907 00:50:17,040 --> 00:50:20,720 Speaker 1: when you're actually getting just random roles of the D twenty, 908 00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:25,480 Speaker 1: you'll get those weird like awesome streaks of luck with 909 00:50:25,640 --> 00:50:30,360 Speaker 1: Roman natural twenties, or just abysmal streaks of luck getting 910 00:50:30,440 --> 00:50:33,320 Speaker 1: natural ones, whereas if you were to try and fake it, 911 00:50:33,440 --> 00:50:35,040 Speaker 1: if you were gonna sit there on the other side 912 00:50:35,040 --> 00:50:38,200 Speaker 1: of your dungeons and dragon zoom call and just absolutely 913 00:50:38,320 --> 00:50:41,399 Speaker 1: fake all of your roles, like you wouldn't dare pull 914 00:50:41,520 --> 00:50:44,680 Speaker 1: three twenties in a row. Uh, but you might very 915 00:50:44,719 --> 00:50:48,640 Speaker 1: well get them just in the natural random order of things. 916 00:50:48,719 --> 00:50:51,920 Speaker 1: I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, I remember 917 00:50:52,040 --> 00:50:55,120 Speaker 1: having this thought recently when I had a sequence of 918 00:50:55,160 --> 00:50:57,560 Speaker 1: several very good roles in a row, and I was like, 919 00:50:57,640 --> 00:51:00,440 Speaker 1: they're gonna think I'm lying because of course we're playing resume, 920 00:51:00,719 --> 00:51:02,680 Speaker 1: and I was like, showing the die. I mean, obviously 921 00:51:02,719 --> 00:51:05,520 Speaker 1: I could have moved it, so that doesn't really prove anything. 922 00:51:05,719 --> 00:51:09,160 Speaker 1: But but I was like, no, this is real. But yeah, 923 00:51:09,280 --> 00:51:13,400 Speaker 1: that's stuff like that happens when you're generating real random sequences. 924 00:51:14,160 --> 00:51:19,000 Speaker 1: When people try to generate random, supposedly random sequences from 925 00:51:19,080 --> 00:51:22,640 Speaker 1: their brains, they overcompensate against that kind of thing, and 926 00:51:22,680 --> 00:51:26,759 Speaker 1: they alternate too much, or they formed too tightly even 927 00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:30,959 Speaker 1: of a distribution from from like moment to moment. Yeah, 928 00:51:31,239 --> 00:51:33,560 Speaker 1: it's like, oh, well, I just take that twenty better 929 00:51:33,719 --> 00:51:36,080 Speaker 1: better fake a thought, No, I better fake a better 930 00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:39,760 Speaker 1: fake an ate a better fake an aid, but anyway, 931 00:51:39,800 --> 00:51:43,759 Speaker 1: so after this one replication attempt, Shermer also reports there 932 00:51:43,840 --> 00:51:47,560 Speaker 1: was another one. A University of Hertfordshire researcher, a psychologist 933 00:51:47,640 --> 00:51:51,040 Speaker 1: named Richard Wiseman, attempted to replicate and also found that 934 00:51:51,120 --> 00:51:53,560 Speaker 1: people guessed no better than chance whether or not they 935 00:51:53,600 --> 00:51:56,839 Speaker 1: were being stared at. And then Shermer also points out 936 00:51:56,880 --> 00:51:59,680 Speaker 1: to what appears to be, at least at a at 937 00:51:59,680 --> 00:52:02,320 Speaker 1: a sort of like survey level of all the different results, 938 00:52:02,480 --> 00:52:06,040 Speaker 1: what appears to be an experiment or bias problem. And 939 00:52:06,840 --> 00:52:08,600 Speaker 1: that works like this, like when you count up all 940 00:52:08,640 --> 00:52:12,920 Speaker 1: of the psychic steering effects studies and then evaluations of studies, 941 00:52:13,320 --> 00:52:16,279 Speaker 1: and you organize them by sort of the affiliation of 942 00:52:16,320 --> 00:52:18,960 Speaker 1: the author, like is this person affiliated with a pro 943 00:52:19,200 --> 00:52:25,080 Speaker 1: paranormal institution or with a mainstream research institution. The results 944 00:52:25,120 --> 00:52:27,520 Speaker 1: in tone of the evaluations are pretty much what you 945 00:52:27,560 --> 00:52:30,040 Speaker 1: would expect. They sort of like line up with the 946 00:52:30,320 --> 00:52:33,319 Speaker 1: you know, the preconceptions you would expect. And to be fair, 947 00:52:33,800 --> 00:52:36,200 Speaker 1: you could say it's possible that the bias runs the 948 00:52:36,280 --> 00:52:40,239 Speaker 1: opposite way. Maybe it's that mainstream and skeptical researchers are 949 00:52:40,360 --> 00:52:44,440 Speaker 1: designing experiments with the bias that produces false negatives, but 950 00:52:44,600 --> 00:52:48,360 Speaker 1: personally I would strongly suspect it's the endverse. Now finally, 951 00:52:48,440 --> 00:52:50,480 Speaker 1: of course, there is an ace in the whole. Uh. 952 00:52:50,840 --> 00:52:53,759 Speaker 1: Shermer mentions that shell Drake responds to some of these 953 00:52:53,960 --> 00:52:57,759 Speaker 1: skeptical experiments and the ones that find no result by 954 00:52:57,840 --> 00:53:01,360 Speaker 1: saying that quote that skeptics day hapen the morphic field 955 00:53:01,560 --> 00:53:05,680 Speaker 1: the morphic residence field of right, Whereas we've heard this before, 956 00:53:06,280 --> 00:53:08,320 Speaker 1: where you know, if you have a skeptic there, of 957 00:53:08,360 --> 00:53:10,520 Speaker 1: course I'm not gonna be able to work my magic. Yeah, 958 00:53:10,600 --> 00:53:13,479 Speaker 1: there's a classic response. And Shermer contends, and I would 959 00:53:13,480 --> 00:53:16,000 Speaker 1: have to agree that this is a sort of death 960 00:53:16,080 --> 00:53:20,360 Speaker 1: blow to a hypothesis because it makes the hypothesis unfalsifiable. 961 00:53:20,680 --> 00:53:23,960 Speaker 1: Negative results just further confirment, so there's no way to 962 00:53:24,040 --> 00:53:27,399 Speaker 1: actually test it. It's a sign of a very bad hypothesis. 963 00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:30,000 Speaker 1: But at the end of all this, while I would 964 00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:32,400 Speaker 1: say I'm personally very skeptical of the idea of an 965 00:53:32,480 --> 00:53:36,600 Speaker 1: extrasensory perceptive ability to detect the gaze of others, I'm 966 00:53:36,880 --> 00:53:41,520 Speaker 1: totally sympathetic to the possibility that people are extremely sensitive, 967 00:53:41,640 --> 00:53:46,160 Speaker 1: perhaps even on some subconscious levels. Two indications of being 968 00:53:46,280 --> 00:53:50,560 Speaker 1: watched that are acquired through normal sensory pathways. I mean, 969 00:53:50,640 --> 00:53:53,719 Speaker 1: for social animals like us, what is more relevant than 970 00:53:53,840 --> 00:53:56,759 Speaker 1: being looked at other than like direct threats to your 971 00:53:56,800 --> 00:54:00,120 Speaker 1: immediate survival? The fact that you are the object to 972 00:54:00,280 --> 00:54:03,160 Speaker 1: someone else's attention is one of the most relevant and 973 00:54:03,239 --> 00:54:06,480 Speaker 1: important circumstances in all of life. It seems that, like, 974 00:54:06,640 --> 00:54:10,239 Speaker 1: there's every reason our bodies would be highly attuned to 975 00:54:10,400 --> 00:54:14,320 Speaker 1: detecting the attention of others by whatever means possible. So 976 00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:16,480 Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, 977 00:54:16,760 --> 00:54:23,120 Speaker 1: we're going to discuss this. Thank alright, we're back. So 978 00:54:23,280 --> 00:54:25,640 Speaker 1: I want to come back to, uh, something you mentioned earlier. 979 00:54:25,920 --> 00:54:29,760 Speaker 1: Earlier Sheldrick's claim that that vision involves a two way process, 980 00:54:30,200 --> 00:54:32,920 Speaker 1: an inward movement of light and an outward projection of 981 00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:35,480 Speaker 1: mental images. Now, the first part of that is absolutely correct. 982 00:54:35,600 --> 00:54:40,040 Speaker 1: That's how vision works. Light enters the eye um outward 983 00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:43,000 Speaker 1: projection of mental images. He means something else. But there 984 00:54:43,160 --> 00:54:46,759 Speaker 1: is something that is projected by the staring eye, and that, 985 00:54:46,920 --> 00:54:50,560 Speaker 1: of course is just the intensity of our eyes. Like, 986 00:54:51,719 --> 00:54:54,520 Speaker 1: especially with humans, as we'll get into here, it is 987 00:54:54,880 --> 00:54:59,000 Speaker 1: very noticeable, especially to other humans, when you are staring 988 00:54:59,080 --> 00:55:02,160 Speaker 1: at them. There is a communication taking place there when 989 00:55:02,239 --> 00:55:05,279 Speaker 1: two eyes meet. Yes, yes, absolutely, I mean the eye 990 00:55:05,440 --> 00:55:08,520 Speaker 1: is a two way radio. It not only takes in information, 991 00:55:08,640 --> 00:55:13,320 Speaker 1: the eye itself conveys information to anyone who can see it. Yeah. So, 992 00:55:13,680 --> 00:55:17,800 Speaker 1: for instance, there's study that identified a specialized group of 993 00:55:17,880 --> 00:55:21,640 Speaker 1: neurons and the caaques and the cac brain that fire 994 00:55:22,120 --> 00:55:25,759 Speaker 1: specifically in reaction to another macaques gaze. So there's a 995 00:55:25,800 --> 00:55:29,880 Speaker 1: lot of mental hardware and software tied up in responding 996 00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:35,120 Speaker 1: to gazes, meeting gazes. We are sensitive to gazes as primates. Absolutely, 997 00:55:35,120 --> 00:55:37,399 Speaker 1: I mean, so much is tied up in a gaze. 998 00:55:37,480 --> 00:55:40,200 Speaker 1: And it's interesting that like the valance of the gaze 999 00:55:40,280 --> 00:55:43,279 Speaker 1: of another of your species can be highly relevant in 1000 00:55:43,400 --> 00:55:45,840 Speaker 1: good and bad ways. It can be a threat, it 1001 00:55:45,920 --> 00:55:48,400 Speaker 1: can represent sexual interest, it can be it can be 1002 00:55:48,640 --> 00:55:51,920 Speaker 1: very good or very bad. Yeah, I mean, you especially 1003 00:55:51,960 --> 00:55:55,279 Speaker 1: see this in the mallion species. And this actually ties 1004 00:55:55,320 --> 00:55:57,480 Speaker 1: into a study that I was very excited about this 1005 00:55:57,640 --> 00:56:01,040 Speaker 1: week that came out. This was any study from the 1006 00:56:01,160 --> 00:56:04,400 Speaker 1: University of Sussex about how to make proper eye contact 1007 00:56:04,680 --> 00:56:08,560 Speaker 1: with your pet cat and they were exploring the long 1008 00:56:08,719 --> 00:56:13,200 Speaker 1: reported um um idea. The long reported importance of eye 1009 00:56:13,320 --> 00:56:19,160 Speaker 1: narrowing movements in maintaining a calm rapport with felines. You 1010 00:56:19,239 --> 00:56:21,239 Speaker 1: may have heard this describe heard the described to too 1011 00:56:21,560 --> 00:56:23,440 Speaker 1: too as being this thing where you just kind of 1012 00:56:23,520 --> 00:56:25,640 Speaker 1: like squint your eyes a little bit and then like 1013 00:56:25,800 --> 00:56:28,319 Speaker 1: slowly open and closed them while staring at your cat. 1014 00:56:28,400 --> 00:56:30,040 Speaker 1: And they seem to sort of do the same thing. 1015 00:56:30,680 --> 00:56:33,360 Speaker 1: And yeah, the slow blank you have this kind of 1016 00:56:33,440 --> 00:56:37,000 Speaker 1: moment with your cat um which which is funny because 1017 00:56:37,000 --> 00:56:39,000 Speaker 1: we tried to We tried to explain to our our 1018 00:56:39,040 --> 00:56:41,200 Speaker 1: eight year old son that this is what we should 1019 00:56:41,200 --> 00:56:43,360 Speaker 1: try and do, and of course they just can't do it, 1020 00:56:43,480 --> 00:56:45,720 Speaker 1: Like it's just all we can do is stare intently 1021 00:56:45,719 --> 00:56:49,760 Speaker 1: at the cat and creep it out. But but anyway, 1022 00:56:49,800 --> 00:56:53,680 Speaker 1: the the lead love is too pure, The cat love 1023 00:56:53,800 --> 00:56:58,440 Speaker 1: is too pure. It is the lead author on the study, 1024 00:56:58,800 --> 00:57:02,520 Speaker 1: or the first author anyway, is a one Dr Tasman Humphrey, 1025 00:57:03,120 --> 00:57:07,440 Speaker 1: PhD student in the School Psychology at the University of Sussex. Uh. 1026 00:57:07,560 --> 00:57:10,000 Speaker 1: And they end up there they do a whole experiment. 1027 00:57:10,080 --> 00:57:12,560 Speaker 1: But I'm gonna read just this quote from them because 1028 00:57:12,680 --> 00:57:15,399 Speaker 1: I find that it it sums up some possibilities here. 1029 00:57:15,880 --> 00:57:18,040 Speaker 1: Quote in terms of why cats behave this way. It 1030 00:57:18,120 --> 00:57:20,720 Speaker 1: could be argued that cats developed a slow blink of 1031 00:57:20,840 --> 00:57:25,200 Speaker 1: behaviors because humans perceived slow blinking is positive. Cats may 1032 00:57:25,280 --> 00:57:29,480 Speaker 1: have learned that humans reward them for responding to slow blinking. Okay, 1033 00:57:29,760 --> 00:57:32,760 Speaker 1: that's that's one idea, but then they continue. It is 1034 00:57:32,840 --> 00:57:35,720 Speaker 1: also possible that slow blinking and cats began as a 1035 00:57:35,800 --> 00:57:39,840 Speaker 1: way to interrupt an unbroken stare, which is potentially threatening 1036 00:57:39,960 --> 00:57:44,120 Speaker 1: in social interaction. Oh interesting, and this kind of comes 1037 00:57:44,120 --> 00:57:45,680 Speaker 1: back to what I said earlier about the about the 1038 00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:49,760 Speaker 1: cat being the perpetual prey and predator. Um Attention is 1039 00:57:49,880 --> 00:57:52,600 Speaker 1: never good if you're a cat, because you think about it, 1040 00:57:52,680 --> 00:57:55,440 Speaker 1: you're solitary creature. As a cat, you put up with 1041 00:57:55,520 --> 00:57:58,960 Speaker 1: these humans certainly, uh worse yet, you may put up 1042 00:57:59,000 --> 00:58:01,640 Speaker 1: with a few select fellow fee lines, but for the 1043 00:58:01,720 --> 00:58:04,840 Speaker 1: most part, you're alone hunter. Most creatures in the in 1044 00:58:04,920 --> 00:58:08,560 Speaker 1: the world around you are either potential prey or potential predator. 1045 00:58:09,120 --> 00:58:12,080 Speaker 1: Prey must either not see you until it's too late 1046 00:58:12,200 --> 00:58:13,920 Speaker 1: or just never see you at all. You know, you 1047 00:58:14,040 --> 00:58:16,240 Speaker 1: just get them completely behind the neck and snap their 1048 00:58:16,280 --> 00:58:21,720 Speaker 1: little necks before they even glimpse your ferocious face. And yeah, 1049 00:58:21,920 --> 00:58:24,440 Speaker 1: and if the predators gaze. You want to avoid that 1050 00:58:24,680 --> 00:58:28,160 Speaker 1: as much as possible, So attention is is not good 1051 00:58:28,560 --> 00:58:32,040 Speaker 1: if you're a cat. Now with humans, as we've mentioned, 1052 00:58:32,200 --> 00:58:34,720 Speaker 1: were were obviously rather different than cats. We are not 1053 00:58:34,920 --> 00:58:38,640 Speaker 1: solitary hunters. We are social creatures. And it's variable, but 1054 00:58:38,760 --> 00:58:40,840 Speaker 1: certainly a lot of us want to want at least 1055 00:58:40,880 --> 00:58:43,600 Speaker 1: to have the right sorts of attention. You might want 1056 00:58:43,640 --> 00:58:47,760 Speaker 1: the attention of desired romantic interest. An actor wants the 1057 00:58:47,960 --> 00:58:51,280 Speaker 1: the positive attention when they take the stage, etcetera, etcetera. 1058 00:58:51,800 --> 00:58:54,720 Speaker 1: But there are plenty of times when even the actors 1059 00:58:54,760 --> 00:58:57,680 Speaker 1: among us, you know, want to remain unstared at, say 1060 00:58:57,720 --> 00:59:00,520 Speaker 1: while while driving past a lurking State trooper car, or 1061 00:59:00,840 --> 00:59:04,960 Speaker 1: while walking down an unfamiliar street while we're leaving oneself 1062 00:59:05,040 --> 00:59:08,760 Speaker 1: in the woods. Yes exactly, But anyway, that's that's all 1063 00:59:08,960 --> 00:59:11,840 Speaker 1: consideration of the gaze of others when it is either 1064 00:59:12,240 --> 00:59:16,560 Speaker 1: anticipated or feared, or or when it is identified. Um, 1065 00:59:17,960 --> 00:59:19,960 Speaker 1: in terms of of of you know, getting back to 1066 00:59:20,040 --> 00:59:22,000 Speaker 1: this idea of about there being a potential sixth sense 1067 00:59:22,040 --> 00:59:27,040 Speaker 1: about about the perception of gays. Um. There's a wonderful 1068 00:59:27,120 --> 00:59:30,080 Speaker 1: article article that came out in sixteen in the conversation 1069 00:59:30,520 --> 00:59:33,800 Speaker 1: by Harriet Dempsey Jones titled a sixth Sense question Mark, 1070 00:59:34,160 --> 00:59:36,960 Speaker 1: and it points out a few interesting takes on all 1071 00:59:37,000 --> 00:59:40,040 Speaker 1: of this. Yeah, I just checked Dempsey Jones. I believe 1072 00:59:40,280 --> 00:59:42,680 Speaker 1: she was a researcher at Oxford at the time this 1073 00:59:42,840 --> 00:59:45,320 Speaker 1: came out, and I think now she's at University College London. 1074 00:59:45,720 --> 00:59:48,440 Speaker 1: It's it's tremendous article. I recommend checking it out if 1075 00:59:48,480 --> 00:59:50,680 Speaker 1: you're at all interested in this topic, which I hope 1076 00:59:50,720 --> 00:59:53,560 Speaker 1: you are. You're already what about an hour into this thing. 1077 00:59:54,400 --> 00:59:57,240 Speaker 1: Hopefully we've we've we've we've kept it going at an 1078 00:59:57,320 --> 01:00:00,800 Speaker 1: interesting click here. But anyway, um, dem see Jones points 1079 01:00:00,800 --> 01:00:02,920 Speaker 1: out there. Okay, first of all, you know, we're seemingly 1080 01:00:02,960 --> 01:00:05,680 Speaker 1: all wired for gay's reception. We see this in children 1081 01:00:05,840 --> 01:00:09,480 Speaker 1: less than a week old, even just like day you know, 1082 01:00:09,480 --> 01:00:11,439 Speaker 1: a few days old. An infant is going to prefer 1083 01:00:11,560 --> 01:00:14,320 Speaker 1: the face that has direct gaze as opposed to in 1084 01:00:15,400 --> 01:00:18,400 Speaker 1: a verdant gaze. And we're not only drawn into the 1085 01:00:18,480 --> 01:00:22,360 Speaker 1: gaze of others, were also skilled at detecting attention and 1086 01:00:22,640 --> 01:00:26,880 Speaker 1: revealing the direction of another individual's gaze. Okay, so how 1087 01:00:26,920 --> 01:00:29,480 Speaker 1: does this work? Well, I mean this to come back 1088 01:00:29,520 --> 01:00:32,280 Speaker 1: to our idea of the crowded room. Uh, this is 1089 01:00:32,320 --> 01:00:36,080 Speaker 1: something we've all experienced before. Our brains want to know 1090 01:00:36,560 --> 01:00:39,200 Speaker 1: who is staring at us? And if they're not staring 1091 01:00:39,240 --> 01:00:42,080 Speaker 1: at us, what are they staring at? You know, it 1092 01:00:42,160 --> 01:00:45,800 Speaker 1: makes sense there is vital social information at play here 1093 01:00:45,880 --> 01:00:49,960 Speaker 1: in this room. Is there something alarming about another individual 1094 01:00:50,000 --> 01:00:52,000 Speaker 1: in the room that I should be alarmed about as well? 1095 01:00:52,600 --> 01:00:55,480 Speaker 1: Is there someone like really weird looking or really interesting 1096 01:00:55,560 --> 01:00:58,640 Speaker 1: looking that I also should god at Is there vital 1097 01:00:58,720 --> 01:01:01,200 Speaker 1: information about like and meals are coming out? You know, 1098 01:01:01,280 --> 01:01:04,360 Speaker 1: there's just just where everybody in a room is looking 1099 01:01:04,760 --> 01:01:07,200 Speaker 1: like there's a lot of information there, and our brains 1100 01:01:07,320 --> 01:01:09,480 Speaker 1: got to know it. Yeah. One thing that's kind of 1101 01:01:09,560 --> 01:01:12,120 Speaker 1: interesting is if you ever just go into a meeting 1102 01:01:12,480 --> 01:01:14,960 Speaker 1: or people gather in a room, just kind of look 1103 01:01:15,000 --> 01:01:18,000 Speaker 1: around and see who everybody starts looking at at the 1104 01:01:18,080 --> 01:01:20,720 Speaker 1: beginning of the meeting, Like is it the boss who's 1105 01:01:20,800 --> 01:01:23,680 Speaker 1: leading the meeting, or is it somebody who you know 1106 01:01:23,760 --> 01:01:26,080 Speaker 1: they're wondering, oh god, what's he going to say today? 1107 01:01:26,240 --> 01:01:29,480 Speaker 1: Or or who is that person? What are they doing here? 1108 01:01:29,600 --> 01:01:32,160 Speaker 1: What is their role? What's about to happen? I Mean, 1109 01:01:32,240 --> 01:01:33,920 Speaker 1: the funny thing is I don't actually have to tell 1110 01:01:33,960 --> 01:01:35,720 Speaker 1: you to look around and see who other people are 1111 01:01:35,760 --> 01:01:38,000 Speaker 1: looking at, because this is automatically what we do. We're 1112 01:01:38,040 --> 01:01:41,760 Speaker 1: constantly checking the line of sight of other people. Yeah, 1113 01:01:41,880 --> 01:01:44,680 Speaker 1: it's just it is there's important social information there and 1114 01:01:44,880 --> 01:01:47,120 Speaker 1: and our and our brains really need to know what 1115 01:01:47,360 --> 01:01:51,600 Speaker 1: is going on, what is important in this current social dynamic. So, 1116 01:01:51,960 --> 01:01:54,880 Speaker 1: referring to a two thousand one study, but kobyashi at all, 1117 01:01:55,160 --> 01:01:58,680 Speaker 1: Dimsey Jones points out the human eye structure is unique. Now, 1118 01:01:58,760 --> 01:02:01,840 Speaker 1: this gets into the this idea of projecting something, you know, 1119 01:02:01,920 --> 01:02:04,600 Speaker 1: not in a magical sense, but in just like look 1120 01:02:04,640 --> 01:02:07,640 Speaker 1: at the eyes, right, The large white sclara of the 1121 01:02:07,720 --> 01:02:11,680 Speaker 1: human eye makes it very easy to discern direction of 1122 01:02:11,840 --> 01:02:15,920 Speaker 1: someone's gaze. If you compare that to the cat's eye, 1123 01:02:15,960 --> 01:02:19,120 Speaker 1: for instance, it's harder to tell exactly what where a 1124 01:02:19,200 --> 01:02:22,680 Speaker 1: predator is looking. Uh, it's just darker than the eye 1125 01:02:22,720 --> 01:02:25,480 Speaker 1: is darker in that part. But but with a human 1126 01:02:25,840 --> 01:02:28,320 Speaker 1: it's it's very easy, especially for another human, to see 1127 01:02:28,400 --> 01:02:31,440 Speaker 1: what they are looking at. Absolutely, and again you do 1128 01:02:31,600 --> 01:02:34,800 Speaker 1: it unconsciously. Yeah, So to come back to that crowded 1129 01:02:34,840 --> 01:02:37,680 Speaker 1: room example, this enables humans to better pick up on 1130 01:02:37,760 --> 01:02:41,080 Speaker 1: those social signals. What is important? What should I be 1131 01:02:41,200 --> 01:02:44,000 Speaker 1: looking at? What should I not be looking at? I mean, 1132 01:02:44,080 --> 01:02:47,320 Speaker 1: just think of how much we can communicate just via 1133 01:02:47,360 --> 01:02:50,520 Speaker 1: the movements and the intensity of our eyes. Imagine what 1134 01:02:50,720 --> 01:02:53,640 Speaker 1: life would be like if you could not tell what 1135 01:02:54,240 --> 01:02:56,560 Speaker 1: all the people around you were looking at. I mean, 1136 01:02:56,640 --> 01:02:59,200 Speaker 1: just try to think of the contrary. Maybe if everybody 1137 01:02:59,280 --> 01:03:02,320 Speaker 1: had a paque one way goggles over their eyes at 1138 01:03:02,360 --> 01:03:05,800 Speaker 1: all the at all times. Wouldn't that be a a 1139 01:03:06,240 --> 01:03:11,000 Speaker 1: deeply weird world? I mean, I think about the ways that, Um, 1140 01:03:11,640 --> 01:03:14,600 Speaker 1: there's a certain there's a certain kind of psychological power 1141 01:03:14,880 --> 01:03:18,720 Speaker 1: that comes with wearing really dark sunglasses indoors, you know, 1142 01:03:18,840 --> 01:03:21,560 Speaker 1: over like you're kind of saying like, I'm not going 1143 01:03:21,640 --> 01:03:23,800 Speaker 1: to allow you to see who I'm looking at or 1144 01:03:23,880 --> 01:03:27,080 Speaker 1: where I'm looking. And there's a there's a discomfort that 1145 01:03:27,160 --> 01:03:29,840 Speaker 1: can come with that. I mean, sometimes people wear dark sunglasses, 1146 01:03:29,920 --> 01:03:32,760 Speaker 1: I think in order to assert a kind of power 1147 01:03:32,920 --> 01:03:36,520 Speaker 1: over others, cool hand Luke style. I mean, sometimes you 1148 01:03:36,600 --> 01:03:38,080 Speaker 1: just want to see the light that's right before your 1149 01:03:38,120 --> 01:03:40,960 Speaker 1: eyes too, right, I get ask what does it mean 1150 01:03:41,040 --> 01:03:43,560 Speaker 1: when he says, don't switch the blade on the guy 1151 01:03:43,680 --> 01:03:46,520 Speaker 1: in shades? Oh no, what does that? Does that refer 1152 01:03:46,640 --> 01:03:50,760 Speaker 1: to something. I've never figured it out. Um, I tend 1153 01:03:50,840 --> 01:03:53,200 Speaker 1: to assume that the whole meaning of this song is 1154 01:03:53,360 --> 01:03:56,120 Speaker 1: that if you wear your sunglasses at night, you were 1155 01:03:56,200 --> 01:03:58,880 Speaker 1: so cool that you can just say a bunch of 1156 01:03:58,960 --> 01:04:01,680 Speaker 1: just nonsense and it will sound cool. You know. It's 1157 01:04:01,720 --> 01:04:04,000 Speaker 1: like the Corey Heart effect or something that nobody's gonna 1158 01:04:04,080 --> 01:04:07,600 Speaker 1: question me. I'm basically a blues brother. Yeah. Now, to 1159 01:04:07,640 --> 01:04:09,560 Speaker 1: come back to Dempsey Jones and their piece here, it 1160 01:04:09,560 --> 01:04:12,160 Speaker 1: should also come as no surprise that highly anxious people 1161 01:04:12,280 --> 01:04:15,520 Speaker 1: focus more on the eyes and stairs of others, while 1162 01:04:15,600 --> 01:04:18,800 Speaker 1: people on the autistic spectrum focused less on the eyes. 1163 01:04:19,360 --> 01:04:22,440 Speaker 1: And direct gaze also factors into human conversation and one 1164 01:04:22,480 --> 01:04:25,080 Speaker 1: to one interaction. And this is something again that has 1165 01:04:25,120 --> 01:04:28,440 Speaker 1: become painfully aware during our age of zoom meetings and 1166 01:04:28,520 --> 01:04:30,800 Speaker 1: what have you. But you know, we we tend to 1167 01:04:30,880 --> 01:04:34,080 Speaker 1: look away from someone's eyes while speaking, uh, the author 1168 01:04:34,120 --> 01:04:37,760 Speaker 1: points out, but we direct our Direct gaze plays into 1169 01:04:37,800 --> 01:04:40,560 Speaker 1: the subtle ways we determine who is talking next, who's 1170 01:04:40,560 --> 01:04:44,600 Speaker 1: getting the talking stick. Direct gaze also plays into the 1171 01:04:44,680 --> 01:04:48,440 Speaker 1: way we perceive trustworthiness and attractiveness and others, which of 1172 01:04:48,520 --> 01:04:51,240 Speaker 1: course is highly problematic in the zoom age, because you 1173 01:04:51,400 --> 01:04:53,720 Speaker 1: really have to fake it, at least in my experience, 1174 01:04:53,920 --> 01:04:56,960 Speaker 1: to try and convey this sense of making eye contact 1175 01:04:57,040 --> 01:04:59,320 Speaker 1: with someone, because you know, I'm not even like, right now, 1176 01:04:59,360 --> 01:05:01,960 Speaker 1: I'm trying to do Joe through our zoom call, I'm 1177 01:05:02,000 --> 01:05:04,040 Speaker 1: not even looking at you. I'm looking at this green 1178 01:05:04,200 --> 01:05:07,440 Speaker 1: dot above your head, above the little window that has 1179 01:05:07,520 --> 01:05:10,160 Speaker 1: your image. But I'm I'm doing this so that I 1180 01:05:10,240 --> 01:05:12,800 Speaker 1: can fake the sense that I am making eye contact 1181 01:05:12,880 --> 01:05:14,760 Speaker 1: with you. I'm trying it right now. Does it look 1182 01:05:14,840 --> 01:05:17,280 Speaker 1: like I'm looking at you. I'm looking at it. At 1183 01:05:17,320 --> 01:05:22,120 Speaker 1: my end, it creates an effective illusion, but we're both 1184 01:05:22,200 --> 01:05:24,240 Speaker 1: having to do something other than the actual thing to 1185 01:05:24,280 --> 01:05:25,760 Speaker 1: try and pull that off, and then of course that 1186 01:05:25,840 --> 01:05:28,040 Speaker 1: takes you out of the actual interaction. I got to 1187 01:05:28,080 --> 01:05:30,080 Speaker 1: apologize for a while. I was doing this thing that 1188 01:05:30,200 --> 01:05:31,840 Speaker 1: just did not work at all. Where I was putting. 1189 01:05:32,200 --> 01:05:34,960 Speaker 1: I was putting the meeting on my secondary screen and 1190 01:05:35,040 --> 01:05:37,120 Speaker 1: had my notes on the screen right in front of me, 1191 01:05:37,640 --> 01:05:40,080 Speaker 1: and so when I actually was looking right at you, 1192 01:05:40,320 --> 01:05:42,640 Speaker 1: I would probably appeared to you to be looking off 1193 01:05:42,720 --> 01:05:44,760 Speaker 1: to the side. And when I was looking when I 1194 01:05:44,800 --> 01:05:46,919 Speaker 1: appeared to be looking at you, I was not looking 1195 01:05:47,000 --> 01:05:50,160 Speaker 1: at you, So I'm sorry for any confusion there. I've 1196 01:05:50,200 --> 01:05:52,680 Speaker 1: stopped doing it that way. I assumed you were doing 1197 01:05:52,760 --> 01:05:55,120 Speaker 1: what I was doing, UH, and that was putting your 1198 01:05:55,280 --> 01:05:57,840 Speaker 1: your your miniature ized screen up close to the camera, 1199 01:05:57,960 --> 01:05:59,680 Speaker 1: and I guess I just wasn't noticing when you were 1200 01:05:59,720 --> 01:06:02,000 Speaker 1: looking way. Well, I'm sorry for giving you so much 1201 01:06:02,080 --> 01:06:06,760 Speaker 1: wide sclera these last few weeks. That's all right. So anyway, 1202 01:06:06,800 --> 01:06:09,480 Speaker 1: when it comes to gays detection, we we always have 1203 01:06:09,560 --> 01:06:13,000 Speaker 1: to remember that we're highly wired to pick up on gazes. Anyway. 1204 01:06:13,640 --> 01:06:17,280 Speaker 1: There's vital social and survival information in this for the 1205 01:06:17,400 --> 01:06:20,560 Speaker 1: human brain. So again, when when the you know, the 1206 01:06:20,640 --> 01:06:22,200 Speaker 1: the girl at the front of the room feels like 1207 01:06:22,320 --> 01:06:24,600 Speaker 1: she's being watched because this weird feeling, and she turns 1208 01:06:24,640 --> 01:06:27,800 Speaker 1: around and someone is actually staring at them at that moment, 1209 01:06:28,480 --> 01:06:30,560 Speaker 1: even if they weren't previously, even if they were only 1210 01:06:30,640 --> 01:06:33,200 Speaker 1: staring at at them now because they just turned around. Whatever. 1211 01:06:33,280 --> 01:06:35,720 Speaker 1: The reason there's like that is that they're going to 1212 01:06:35,840 --> 01:06:38,800 Speaker 1: pick up on that gaze, Like the impression of being 1213 01:06:38,920 --> 01:06:43,120 Speaker 1: stared at uh is going to be noteworthy to our 1214 01:06:43,200 --> 01:06:46,680 Speaker 1: understanding of our environment. You know, this connects to another 1215 01:06:46,720 --> 01:06:49,160 Speaker 1: study that I was looking at for Today. That was 1216 01:06:49,200 --> 01:06:54,320 Speaker 1: published in Current Biology and called humans have an expectation 1217 01:06:54,520 --> 01:06:59,320 Speaker 1: that gays is directed toward them. This was by Isabel Marischal, 1218 01:06:59,440 --> 01:07:03,360 Speaker 1: Andrew jake Holder, and Colin W. G. Clifford. And in 1219 01:07:03,480 --> 01:07:06,400 Speaker 1: this study, the authors they're they're trying to show that 1220 01:07:06,520 --> 01:07:09,760 Speaker 1: people just have a bias in favor of expecting that 1221 01:07:09,920 --> 01:07:12,880 Speaker 1: other people are looking at them when there's any kind 1222 01:07:12,920 --> 01:07:16,520 Speaker 1: of ambiguity about where other people are looking. Um, they say, 1223 01:07:16,600 --> 01:07:20,840 Speaker 1: quote this expectation dominates perception where there is high uncertainty, 1224 01:07:20,960 --> 01:07:23,240 Speaker 1: such as at night or when the other person is 1225 01:07:23,280 --> 01:07:28,280 Speaker 1: wearing sunglasses. We presented participants with synthetic faces viewed under 1226 01:07:28,360 --> 01:07:32,000 Speaker 1: high and low levels of uncertainty, and manipulated the faces 1227 01:07:32,080 --> 01:07:35,440 Speaker 1: by adding noise to the eyes. Then we asked the 1228 01:07:35,480 --> 01:07:39,439 Speaker 1: participants to judge relative gaze directions. We found that all 1229 01:07:39,600 --> 01:07:44,160 Speaker 1: participants systematically perceived the noisy gaze as being directed more 1230 01:07:44,280 --> 01:07:48,360 Speaker 1: toward them. This suggests that the adult nervous system internally 1231 01:07:48,440 --> 01:07:52,000 Speaker 1: represents a prior for gaze and highlights the importance of 1232 01:07:52,080 --> 01:07:56,200 Speaker 1: experience in developing our interpretation of another's gaze. So, if 1233 01:07:56,200 --> 01:07:58,840 Speaker 1: you imagine somebody who for some reason you can't see 1234 01:07:58,840 --> 01:08:01,240 Speaker 1: where their eyes are going almost all of our brains 1235 01:08:01,280 --> 01:08:03,160 Speaker 1: are just gunning to say they're looking at me, They're 1236 01:08:03,160 --> 01:08:07,440 Speaker 1: looking right at me. And then that's that's especially funny 1237 01:08:07,640 --> 01:08:10,680 Speaker 1: given the situations where someone might be wearing sunglasses and 1238 01:08:10,760 --> 01:08:13,440 Speaker 1: thinking I have free license to just stare at this 1239 01:08:13,560 --> 01:08:17,439 Speaker 1: person because they can't tell I'm doing it right, They're 1240 01:08:17,439 --> 01:08:21,920 Speaker 1: assuming you are. Yeah uh um. Now. One thing I 1241 01:08:22,000 --> 01:08:24,479 Speaker 1: love about this too is that this ties indirectly with 1242 01:08:24,800 --> 01:08:28,920 Speaker 1: our episode from earlier in the year on the spotlight effect. Yes, yeah, 1243 01:08:29,040 --> 01:08:32,600 Speaker 1: the now, the spotlight effect was more about um, the 1244 01:08:32,680 --> 01:08:36,879 Speaker 1: perception of attention than like just how what is directly 1245 01:08:36,960 --> 01:08:40,679 Speaker 1: being done with the eyes? But but it's very close, 1246 01:08:40,760 --> 01:08:43,879 Speaker 1: and it definitely dovetails with this finding because the spotlight 1247 01:08:43,920 --> 01:08:47,519 Speaker 1: effect is the tendency to overestimate the degree to which 1248 01:08:47,600 --> 01:08:51,560 Speaker 1: other people notice and remember things about you. Um. You know. 1249 01:08:51,720 --> 01:08:56,120 Speaker 1: I I seem to recall in David Eagleman's book Live Wired. 1250 01:08:56,200 --> 01:08:59,040 Speaker 1: You know, he gets into the idea of of additional 1251 01:08:59,160 --> 01:09:03,360 Speaker 1: sensory input. It's being um, you know, installed um in 1252 01:09:03,439 --> 01:09:06,680 Speaker 1: the body into the brain. Uh And and I think 1253 01:09:06,760 --> 01:09:08,760 Speaker 1: he even mentioned briefly in passing with the idea of 1254 01:09:08,840 --> 01:09:10,479 Speaker 1: like what have you added a third eye that looked 1255 01:09:10,520 --> 01:09:13,080 Speaker 1: behind you. Um, like what that would do? And like, 1256 01:09:13,280 --> 01:09:15,640 Speaker 1: basically the answer is that your brain would adjust and 1257 01:09:15,720 --> 01:09:18,559 Speaker 1: this would become your your new vision of the world, 1258 01:09:18,680 --> 01:09:21,960 Speaker 1: your new way of of of anticipating and um and 1259 01:09:22,240 --> 01:09:25,040 Speaker 1: uh and viewing the world around you. Because he's he's 1260 01:09:25,160 --> 01:09:28,760 Speaker 1: very much emphasizing the potential of neuroplasticity, right, He's saying, like, 1261 01:09:28,880 --> 01:09:32,479 Speaker 1: the brain is highly adaptable to new types of you know, 1262 01:09:32,840 --> 01:09:36,000 Speaker 1: new ways of incorporating stimuli and stuff like that. Yeah, 1263 01:09:36,240 --> 01:09:38,960 Speaker 1: you give the brain new information. Uh, even if it 1264 01:09:39,120 --> 01:09:42,200 Speaker 1: is a new type of information, he argues, it's going 1265 01:09:42,280 --> 01:09:44,519 Speaker 1: to learn how to use it if it is useful 1266 01:09:44,600 --> 01:09:47,000 Speaker 1: to the brain. It's hard to even imagine what that 1267 01:09:47,040 --> 01:09:50,840 Speaker 1: would be like now though, because you can't. I mean, yeah, 1268 01:09:51,800 --> 01:09:54,160 Speaker 1: I cannot imagine what it would be like to have 1269 01:09:54,600 --> 01:09:57,120 Speaker 1: a three hundred and sixty degree view in vision. That 1270 01:09:57,280 --> 01:10:00,559 Speaker 1: just doesn't it doesn't make sense. I mean, it comes 1271 01:10:00,600 --> 01:10:02,439 Speaker 1: it comes back to the different sense worlds of animals. 1272 01:10:02,479 --> 01:10:04,639 Speaker 1: Really to a large degree, you know, we can't truly 1273 01:10:04,720 --> 01:10:07,560 Speaker 1: imagine what it's like to smell as a dog, or 1274 01:10:07,680 --> 01:10:11,080 Speaker 1: to hear as a cat, or to even see as 1275 01:10:11,160 --> 01:10:14,280 Speaker 1: something like, Um, you know, like the mantis, shrimp, etcetera. 1276 01:10:15,160 --> 01:10:16,920 Speaker 1: All right, well, we're gonna go ahead and call it 1277 01:10:17,040 --> 01:10:20,240 Speaker 1: there for the episode. We hope you all enjoyed this one. 1278 01:10:20,439 --> 01:10:22,040 Speaker 1: You know, I feel like this is definitely one that 1279 01:10:22,120 --> 01:10:24,479 Speaker 1: everyone can relate to. We've all had some of the 1280 01:10:24,560 --> 01:10:27,560 Speaker 1: feelings here that we've discussed and we would love to 1281 01:10:27,800 --> 01:10:31,439 Speaker 1: hear your insight regarding it. In the meantime, if you 1282 01:10:31,479 --> 01:10:33,600 Speaker 1: would like to listen to other episodes of Stuff to 1283 01:10:33,600 --> 01:10:36,240 Speaker 1: Blow your Mind, you can find us wherever you find 1284 01:10:36,360 --> 01:10:39,479 Speaker 1: our podcast, wherever that happens to be. We just ask 1285 01:10:39,520 --> 01:10:41,880 Speaker 1: that you rate, review, and subscribe. We have a lot 1286 01:10:41,920 --> 01:10:44,639 Speaker 1: of great Halloween content this month. We hope you're checking 1287 01:10:44,680 --> 01:10:46,360 Speaker 1: it out, and if you haven't, if you're not familiar 1288 01:10:46,360 --> 01:10:48,120 Speaker 1: with the rest of what we do, uh, do go 1289 01:10:48,240 --> 01:10:50,880 Speaker 1: in and check out our October offerings because we think 1290 01:10:51,000 --> 01:10:53,080 Speaker 1: it's a lot of fun. Uh. You can always find 1291 01:10:53,160 --> 01:10:54,400 Speaker 1: us at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com that 1292 01:10:54,400 --> 01:10:56,400 Speaker 1: will shoot you over to the I heart page for 1293 01:10:56,479 --> 01:10:58,760 Speaker 1: our show. There's a store link there if you want 1294 01:10:58,760 --> 01:11:00,280 Speaker 1: to buy a shirt with a monster on it. We 1295 01:11:00,400 --> 01:11:02,880 Speaker 1: got a few of them huge thanks as always to 1296 01:11:02,960 --> 01:11:06,200 Speaker 1: our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would 1297 01:11:06,200 --> 01:11:07,960 Speaker 1: like to get in touch with us with feedback on 1298 01:11:08,040 --> 01:11:10,639 Speaker 1: this episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future, 1299 01:11:10,720 --> 01:11:12,720 Speaker 1: or just to say hello, you can email us at 1300 01:11:13,080 --> 01:11:23,479 Speaker 1: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff 1301 01:11:23,479 --> 01:11:25,679 Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. 1302 01:11:26,040 --> 01:11:28,120 Speaker 1: For more podcasts for My heart Radio, visit the i 1303 01:11:28,240 --> 01:11:31,000 Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to 1304 01:11:31,080 --> 01:11:31,880 Speaker 1: your favorite shows.