WEBVTT - It Sees You 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:07.560 The woods grew thicker and more rampant as we went on, 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:11.399 and the road, though paved with granite slabs, was more 0:00:11.400 --> 0:00:16.600 and more overgrown, for trees had rooted themselves in the interstices, 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:21.680 often forcing the wide blocks apart. Though the sun had 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:25.040 not yet near the horizon, the shades that were cast 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:28.920 upon us from gigantic bowls and branches became ever denser, 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:32.960 and we moved in a dark green twilight, fraught with 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:37.760 oppressive odors of lush growth and of vegetable corruption. There 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:40.720 were no birds nor animals, such as one would think 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:44.480 to find in any wholesome forest, but it rare intervals. 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:49.000 A stealthy viper with pale and heavy coils glided away 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:52.240 from our feet among the rank leaves of the roadside, 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:56.760 or some enormous moth with baroque and evil colored mottlings 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:02.480 flew before us and disappeared in the nous of the jungle. Abroad. 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:06.760 Already in the half light, huge purpureal bats with eyes 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:10.720 like tiny rubies, arose at our approach from the poisonous 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:14.560 looking fruits on which they feasted, and watched us with 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:18.639 malign attention as they hovered noiselessly in the air above, 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:22.480 and we felt somehow that we were being watched by 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:26.759 other and invisible presences, and a sort of awe fell 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:30.280 upon us, and a vague fear of the monstrous jungle, 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:34.320 and we no longer spoke aloud, were frequently, but only 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:43.479 in rare whispers. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:52.880 production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:55.760 Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:58.760 Joe McCormick. And Robert, you selected such a wonderful reading 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:01.200 for us today. What is that for? Um? Well, you know, 0:02:01.240 --> 0:02:02.960 I was. I was trying to think of a good 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:05.240 a good reading that would tie into our topic today, 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.079 and I thought back to Clark Ashton Smith, one of 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:10.200 my really not only one, not one of my my 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:13.480 favorite author of the Weird Horror period. You can keep 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:16.400 your your love crafts and your Howard's h because Clark 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:18.920 Ashton Smith is all you need. This is from a 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:24.040 story titled The Tale of set Empra Zeros, and you 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:26.520 can find this in some of the key collections of 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:30.560 Clark Ashton Smith's work, but it's also online in its 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:33.880 entirety at Eldric Dark dot com. That's where you can 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:35.800 find a lot of his his his writings and his 0:02:35.840 --> 0:02:39.200 poetry and all. But I particularly picked this out though, 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:42.240 because it it has this very familiar part of in 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:44.800 it that I think should familiar to feel familiar to 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:47.760 everyone who's ever watched a horror movie or even had 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:51.200 kind of a creepy feeling themselves, particularly if you're out 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:53.320 in the woods or in a strange part of town, 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:57.400 this feeling that something is watching you, right, And so 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:00.400 that's what we're gonna be talking about today, the feeling 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:03.560 of being watched. And we're gonna look at this from 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:07.959 a couple of different angles, from a real scientific investigation angles, 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:12.760 some possible pseudo scientific interpretations, and of course, you know, 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:14.840 we we just got to try out the horror movies 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:18.919 because this is one of the most common moments in 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:22.720 in a horror film. Uh. It's the moment when you 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:25.520 can tell, whether the character says it out loud or not, 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:29.160 that they feel eyes boring into the back of their 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:31.360 head or the back of their neck. I mean, this 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:34.399 brings to mind the Song of the Warrior by Scandal, 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:39.040 one of my favorites. You you you talk, talk, you 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:42.600 talk to me. Your eyes touch me physically, so good. 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:46.640 Which brings, you know, to mind of eyeballs actually touching 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:50.360 someone's body, but also this sort of idea that our 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.720 eyes like shoot out like like those of a cartoon 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:57.160 coyote and physically touch somehow that which they are viewing. 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:00.240 You know, there's another great song about touching eyeball, which 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:03.160 is that Peter Gabriel song. You know, he says, he's like, 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:05.080 I want to touch your eyes. I always thought that 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:07.520 was really funny. No, nobody else ever seems to think 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:11.000 that's funny. But I imagine just salty kind of stinging 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:14.520 fingertips going right there on the sclera. No, no, it's 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:16.279 fair as fair. If we're gonna make fun of Scandal 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:18.720 for for their lyrics, we're gonna make fun of the 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:21.760 great Peter Gabriel as well. Both of these great songs, though, 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:26.480 without a doubt. Another great song, though probably the greatest 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:29.000 song about the feeling of being watched though, comes to 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:34.800 us from Rockwell his synth funk single Somebody's Watching Me. 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:37.960 This is from four this head backing vocals by Michael 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:41.400 and Jermaine Jackson. You know the one, Joe, Oh yeah, yeah, 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:45.080 we we watched the music video. It's uh. I would say, 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:48.279 somewhat horror movie inspired. He there's like a shower scene. 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:50.320 It's where he gets in the shower and he's singing 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:52.920 the song at you while he's soaping up. Yeah, it's 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:55.440 not quite thriller, and it definitely didn't have the budget 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:58.599 of thriller, but it's it's a fun, fun music video 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:01.280 to look up and watch in this Halloween season. I 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:03.800 actually like the song. I think it's pretty good, uh 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:07.000 sort of spooky, uh pop funk kind of thing. Yeah, 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:09.279 I know I would with that without hesitation put it 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:12.880 on a fun Halloween mix. But of course it is 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:16.080 a mainstay of horror movies, and strangely enough, I wonder 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:18.440 what you think about this. I would say especially horror 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:22.839 movies that are set in the woods, where there's a 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:27.360 scene where you can tell something. Suddenly someone feels that 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:30.520 they are being watched even though they can't see anything 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:34.240 or anybody watching them. Absolutely Like when when you brought 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:38.839 this idea, I instantly thought of Friday thirteenth movies, and 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:42.680 I thought about teens walking around and then being stalked 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:45.000 by something unseen. But then I also had to stop 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:48.360 myself and realize that I wasn't really specifically thinking back 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:50.839 to Friday the thirteenth, I was thinking of that episode 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:54.800 of The Simpsons where Ernest borg nine takes all the 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:57.839 campers and they wind up at what is supposed to 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:02.960 be Crystal Lake and Jason Vorhees is presumably stalking them. Yeah, 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:06.840 it's often accomplished in the movies with with camera work actually, 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:10.080 like it sort of puts you suddenly in the point 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.320 of view of the stalker, the monster, the killer, which 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:15.400 can be can feel kind of seedy and creepy, and 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.600 especially the seed here and creepier horror films, because there's 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:22.560 this sense of, um, you're you're suddenly playing the voyeur, 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:26.360 and not only the the voyor, but the predatory voyer. 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:29.919 You know, as you're stalking some you know, new Bile 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:32.680 victim or something. It can feel a bit creepy. But 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:34.760 I guess some of those films you're kind of supposed 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:37.880 to feel creepy watching them. Yeah. Well, it's also I 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:39.960 guess part of the visual language of the horror movie 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:42.560 that often it's not set out loud, you know. The 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:45.960 Clark Ashton Smith story has a narrator who can actually 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:49.159 say we felt we were being watched, But in the movies. 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:53.160 The idea is often conveyed without dialogue. It's just that, 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:56.320 you know, Tina's wandering through the forest at night, and 0:06:56.360 --> 0:07:00.720 then there's a certain sort of sequence of actions. She pauses, 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:05.080 she looks over her shoulder cautiously, she listens, you know, 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:07.440 she kind of turns her head to hear the sounds 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:10.640 of the forest, as if Tina senses that she's being 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:16.120 observed without being able to see the observer. And the 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:19.520 weird thing is, we never really stopped to question that 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.360 part of the narrative, do we. It's almost like you 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:26.120 just assume there is such a thing as a sixth 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.960 sense for being observed. You just it just feels natural 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:32.200 to say, like, oh, yeah, you can feel when somebody's 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:35.360 watching you. Yeah. Yeah. We we tend to to not 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:39.720 think it's something supernatural when we're watching these, even supernatural films, 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:43.480 Like we don't think of that as the supernatural element um. However, 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:46.880 I was looking around, thinking around for some some key 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:51.600 cinematic examples of this where it's like really expressed deliberately, 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:54.320 and the two that came to mind. One of them 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:56.800 is very much a supernatural event and the other one 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:59.280 is sort of implied that it might be so the 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:04.040 first one predator from there's this character Billy Soul I 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:06.560 think you probably remember him. He's one of the mercenaries. 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:09.040 He's uh, I think he's supposed to be half sue 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:13.520 Um and he feels the predator watching them like he's 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:16.320 the I can't recall if he's like the first one 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:17.920 to get this sense of the only one to get 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:20.720 this sense, but he somehow knows that they are being 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:24.640 hunted by this alien force. Another example this is one 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:26.120 from a from a book. I don't know that this 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:28.840 is reflected in the various film adaptations or not, but 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:31.960 I've found that in The Two Towers, there's a scene 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:36.600 where Sam since his Gallum quote, once looking suddenly back, 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:38.960 as if some prickle of the skin told him that 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:41.600 he was watched from behind. He thought he caught a 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.960 brief glimpse of a small dark shape slipping behind a 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:48.400 tree trunk. That's really interesting because it mentions a prickle, 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:50.280 and that's gonna come up in some of the studies 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:53.200 we look at and and and again. Like you know, 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:56.040 there's a lot of magic going on. Uh. In the 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:59.360 Lord of the Rings, there's certainly some extrasensory perception but 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:02.120 generally we don't attribute that to Sam. Sam's about his 0:09:02.320 --> 0:09:04.560 uh down to earth as you can ask for in 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:07.360 this novel. And that's kind of the point, right, Sam 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:11.640 does not have the palatineer powers. He is a gardener. Yeah. 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:14.199 I should also say that this apparently pops up in 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:16.679 a Twilight Zone episode one that I have not seen, 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:20.400 called stop Over in a Quiet Town. So if you've 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:23.360 seen it, let us know what you think. So I 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:25.920 wanted to talk about this today. The feeling that you 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:28.800 can tell when you're being watched through means other than 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:31.640 your normal sensory apparatus. I mean, obviously you can tell 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:33.760 if like you can see the person watching you, but 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:36.960 by means other than that, by say, a tingling at 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:39.840 the back of your neck or on your back. Uh. 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:42.800 And And it turns out this feeling is not just 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:45.520 something that we started to assume as natural when we 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:48.960 started watching slasher movies in the early eighties. This is 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:52.240 something that has been investigated scientifically at least as far 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:55.679 back as the eighteen nineties. And there is a very 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:58.960 important early study on this, probably the first study, definitely 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:01.280 the earliest one I could find, and by the English 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:06.120 psychologist and Cornell University professor Edward Titchener, You ready to 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:09.079 jump into this study, Let's do it, okay. So the 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:12.200 study is called the Feeling of Being Stared At, and 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:15.320 it was published in Science in the year eight and 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:19.360 Tishner begins with a clear summary of the phenomena. He says, 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:22.720 every year I find a certain proportion of students in 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:26.360 my junior classes who are firmly persuaded that they can 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:29.840 feel that they are being stared at from behind, and 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:33.760 a smaller proportion who believed that by persistent gazing at 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:36.000 the back of the neck, they have the power to 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:39.040 make a person seated in front of them turn round 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:42.080 and look at them in the face. And he learns 0:10:42.120 --> 0:10:45.560 from conversations with with these students that this is usually 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:48.520 believed to happen in crowded settings. And I think this 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:52.200 is an interesting contrast to UH. In the horror movies, 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:55.440 we often see it deployed in very lonely settings, say 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:58.600 when a character is is moving by themselves through a 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:02.280 forest at night or something. But Tishner says it's most 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:05.400 often mentioned in the context of being in church or 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:08.920 in a classroom, or a public hallway or an assembly 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:11.760 hall and so Tishner says, Okay, well, what does this 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:14.360 feel like? What is it like when somebody is looking 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:16.840 at you and you can and you can tell without 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:21.079 seeing them. Uh. Students describe the feeling as being uncanny, 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:23.760 of course, of course it's a little bit creepy, but 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:27.320 also as a feeling of must by which I believe 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:31.840 he means there's this irresistible, almost automatic impulse to turn 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:34.760 around and look behind you when you get this sensation, 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:38.040 but he says it's also sometimes described as having a 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:42.080 physical sensation in the body, like an unpleasant tension or 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:46.120 stiffness at the nape of the neck quote, sometimes accompanied 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:49.880 by tingling, which gathers in volume and intensity until a 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:53.760 movement which shall relieve it becomes inevitable. It is believed 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:56.120 that this stiffness is, in some way or other, the 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:59.600 direct effect of the focusing of vision upon the back 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:03.920 of the head and neck. So here's the phenomenon. Students 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:06.840 often described that they think they can either make other 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:09.080 people turn around by looking at their backs, or that 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:11.520 they can feel when someone is staring at the back 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:14.520 of their head. And sometimes this feeling has a physical 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:19.080 component it tingles back there. Yeah, and I certainly think 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:21.600 we can all think back on examples of this from 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:24.600 you know, certainly from from school, you know, any kind 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:27.520 of classroom environment you've been in where there is this 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:29.760 kind of uh. The way I often encountered was this 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:32.720 was this feeling that you should not stare at somebody, 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:34.920 even the back of their head too much in class 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:37.559 because they will know that you are staring, and then 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:40.719 they will turn around and you will be exposed as 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:44.080 a creepy staring person in a very in a video 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:46.319 game context, have you ever played one of those games 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:48.360 where there's a stealth thing and there's kind of a 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:51.040 meter that fills up as a as a character is 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:53.600 about to see you, and you have to not let 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:57.000 the meter fill up. That sort of correlates to something 0:12:57.000 --> 0:12:59.120 in reality. It's like the longer you look at someone, 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:02.160 the meter is filling up, and eventually if it fills up, 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:07.040 they'll whip around and look right at you. Am I wrong? No? No, 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:09.000 that's that's this is this is right? And I think 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:11.280 the key thing is it's not that they will look 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:13.640 right at you when they turn around while you're staring 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:16.840 at them. The key question is, is there's something about 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:20.880 you staring at them that is making them turn around right, right, 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:22.960 And we will get into a lot of this as 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:26.480 we proceed here. Yes, And so Tishner argues that this 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:29.880 belief is not correct, that it is uh, that it 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:32.880 is a false impression that you can feel the gaze 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:36.319 of others, but that it is based on the foundation 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:38.800 of a number of psychological realities. And in the rest 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:41.880 of the paper he presents an argument based on natural 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:45.720 phenomena to explain why people so often think they're having 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:50.040 this experience. And so Tisner's explanation goes like this. First 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:54.160 of all, he says, people are clearly nervous about their backs, 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:57.319 and there are a number of observations you can make 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:00.760 to confirm this. First of all, imagine a big audience 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:03.880 gathering in a lecture hall to listen to, you know, 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:07.319 a defense of the existence of the luminiferous ether. Right, 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:09.960 you have maybe a dozen rows of students who are 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:12.680 seated in front of you. Just imagine sitting down and 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:14.520 watching the students in front of you. What do they 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.400 do when they sit down, Well, very often you'll notice 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:20.840 them kind of checking and attending to their backs, so 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:24.280 they're aware of people sitting behind them looking at them, so, 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:26.840 Tititioner writes, quote, you will notice that a great many 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.200 women are continually placing their hands to their heads, smoothing 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:33.000 and patting their hair, and every now and again glancing 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:35.640 at their shoulders or over their shoulders to their backs, 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:38.480 while many of the men will frequently glance at or 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:42.200 over their shoulders and make padding or brushing movements with 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:45.920 the hand upon lapel and coat collar. And obviously this 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:48.200 is going to vary from person to person, but it 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:50.680 appears to be extremely common. When you know people are 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:53.080 looking at your back, you start kind of fixing up 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:56.800 your back, right, Yeah, yeah, I mean, certainly posture comes 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:59.400 to mind. You know. Um, I feel like if I 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:01.480 know that an back is being stared at, I'm gonna 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:03.680 be I'm gonna probably check in on my posture and 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:06.240 make sure that I am seated correctly, you know, Yeah, 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.120 make it more self conscious, make sure you're not doing 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:12.680 the plumber. But also, by the way, I've never seen 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:15.000 any convincing evidence that the butt hanging out of the 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:17.800 pants is more common in plumbers than in other professions. 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:21.480 I think that may be unfair to plumbers. Yes, but 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:24.400 Tishner also mentions a friend of his who quote learned 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:28.000 to dance after he had arrived at Man's Estate. I 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:30.120 had to look that up. But Man's Estate, it just 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:32.400 means he only learned to dance once he was already 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:36.200 a full grown adult. But he so he this guy 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:40.880 was almost physically unable to bear the pain of turning 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:44.680 his back to his instructor while the instructor was watching him, 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:48.280 and then concurrently he felt this extreme relief at the 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:51.240 inverse when the instructor would turn around and turn his 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:54.040 back to Tishner's friend, It's like he could come up 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:57.960 for air. And Tishner also mentions the discomfort that many 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:01.240 lecturers feel when they have to turn their backs on 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:04.120 the classroom or audience in order to write something on 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:07.200 the chalkboard. And I remember this feeling from being in 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:09.880 front of a class. It's very uncomfortable whenever you turn 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:12.240 your back on the audience or the classroom to write. 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:15.080 It's again, it's kind of like going under water. You 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:17.200 can sort of like come back up for air once 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:20.520 you turn back around to face them again. But also 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.160 I mean things that are common to everyday experience. Where 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:25.360 do most people want to sit in a restaurant and 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:27.280 you know at a table with their back to the 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:28.960 door or in the middle of the room. Well, of 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:31.160 course not know. Most people want to sit like at 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:33.280 a booth or a table with their back to the wall. 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:35.920 Where did nervous kids at a party want to hang 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:37.720 out there at the edge of the room with their 0:16:37.760 --> 0:16:40.800 back to the wall. Yeah, the wall is generally the 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:43.480 place to be. Um. Now that being said, I don't 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:45.160 want to be trapped at the back of the restaurant either. 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:46.920 I don't want to be like the middle person in 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:49.440 a booth, you know, the big circular booth like that. 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:51.960 That in a way for me, is worse than being 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:53.800 in the middle of the room, but still not be 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:56.440 as bad as if you were seated very close to 0:16:56.480 --> 0:16:58.360 the door with your back to the door. That would, 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:01.160 without a doubt be the worst. So yeah, it seems 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:04.760 totally clear that almost all of us, generally people are 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:07.800 nervous about their backs, and as Tisner points out, there 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:12.200 are extremely obvious phylogenetic reasons why people would be nervous 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:14.760 about their backs and uncomfortable with the idea of being 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:18.879 observed from behind. Our eyes face forward. Our anatomy is 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:23.280 a raid with mostly forward facing defensive equipment. Our backs, 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:26.239 of course, are vulnerable to attack. Yeah, you look at 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:29.679 many many what we would refer to as prey species, uh, 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:32.440 you know, are are going to have their eyes position 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:35.440 more towards the side of their skull, allowing for better 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:39.480 visual surveillance of the surroundings, while predatory species often have 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:42.679 more forward facing eyes. Though, of course, in all of 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:44.879 this we we still should not discount the importance of 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:48.040 other senses, and as always acknowledged that the sense worlds 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:50.280 of other animals are not identical to the sense worlds 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:53.760 of humans. For instance, the common house cat is both 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:56.440 predator and prey, and while it has those forward facing 0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:59.920 eyes of a pure predator, it also has these high 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.600 howard ears that are essential to a cat since world, 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:06.600 and they're always listening, so you know, sometimes serving as 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:10.040 a kind of backward facing eye of the cat. So anyway, 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:12.399 this is not Tistioner's term, but I thought I should 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:13.800 have a term for it, just so we can refer 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:16.000 to it throughout the episode. I would call this general 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:20.159 type of nervousness dorsal anxiety. Right, it's the whatever the 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:22.760 back part of your you is, your back, the part 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:26.560 away from where your eyes face. There's there's nervousness about 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:31.200 that area. So then on too. Tistioner's next point. One 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:34.359 of the ways that this dorsal anxiety manifests in a 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:37.800 crowded rumor hall is in the tendency to look around 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:42.879 behind you. However, we are also nervous about being caught 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:47.280 displaying this dorsal anxiety too conspicuously. Right, You've got to 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:50.679 be cool about it. You don't wanna, you know, you 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:53.480 don't want to look like you are overly concerned about 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:56.359 who's looking at you or about the appearance of your back, 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:01.639 so Tistioner writes. Quote. Hence, there's often avoluntary continuation of 0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:05.800 the original ideo motor movements, meaning looking behind you. Uh, 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:09.840 he continues, One looks around inquiringly, as if one we're 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:13.360 seeking for a special person or event, taking one's direction 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:17.920 from some chance, noise or falling seats or rustle of dresses, 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:20.919 letting one's eyes come to rest upon some patch of 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:25.360 intense color, etcetera, etcetera. The deals differ in different cases. 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:28.560 The general mechanism is the same. Observe that this is 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:32.200 entirely independent of any gaze or stare coming from behind. 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:35.240 So I think we're probably familiar with this too. Write 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:38.160 like you you nervously glance over your own shoulder because 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:42.000 you suddenly feel compelled to, but then you don't want 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:43.800 to look like that's what you're doing, so you also 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:46.520 just kind of look around so as you know, not 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:50.480 to look nervous or like you're looking at anything in particular. Yeah, 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:52.680 there's a I mean, one of the big things that 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:54.199 that we're going to keep coming back to it with 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:57.240 humans especially is just that we are very social animals. 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:00.320 We are we are communal, we we worked to together, 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:03.600 but there there's a very it's it's a very complex arrangement. 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:07.400 So it makes me think of say, a real backstagging 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:10.000 stabbing villain in uh, you know, a picture of a 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:13.760 book or something like that. Backstabbing villain has a lot 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:17.440 of dorsal anxiety because they know all about backstabbing, so 0:20:17.880 --> 0:20:20.440 they they're perpetually afraid of being stabbed in the back. 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:22.600 But at the same time, they can't look like they're 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:24.720 afraid they're gonna be stabbing the back, because that's a 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:27.240 great way to get stabbed in the back. Yeah, you're 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:29.399 just inviting it at that point, So you gotta be cool, 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:31.400 you gotta just kind of like, Oh, yeah, I wonder 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:33.199 what the walls are doing right now. Oh, that's an 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:36.760 interesting thing up on the ceiling. Okay. Third part of 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:40.560 Tishnar's argument, what are the consequences of these dorsal anxiety 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:44.320 checks well. Tishner points out that quote, movement in an 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:48.040 unmoved field, whether the field be that of sight or hearing, 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:50.760 or touch or any other, is one of the strongest 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:54.879 known stimuli to the passive attention. We cannot help but 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:58.760 attend movement. So something moves, you naturally look at it. 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:02.760 So imagine you've got a classroom. Jimmy is sitting in 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:05.520 the front row and Gertrude is sitting in the back row. 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:08.800 If Jimmy starts moving his head around or starts to 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:12.840 turn around and look behind him, Gertrude's attention is naturally 0:21:12.840 --> 0:21:16.000 going to be attracted to him by the movement. Then, 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:18.480 as he continues looking all around the room in order 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:21.000 to kind of be cool, he will tend to notice 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:24.119 Gertrude and probably other people as well, are staring at 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:27.840 him because he moved. But Jimmy is likely to believe 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:30.560