Tag: Psychology

Our brains are hard wired to detect and analyze the faces of other people. Because of this instinct we often see faces in things that are not only non-human but non-living like bottles, air conditioners, burnt pieces of toast and even the man in the Moon.

At birth we humans are perhaps the most helpless of creatures. Unable to move let alone find food or take care of ourselves in any way we are utterly dependent on other humans for our survival. For that reason the very first thing our brains are designed to do is recognize another person, especially another human face.

Most living creatures have to be able to take care of themselves from the moment they are born. We however are probably the most helpless of creatures, utterly dependent on other humans to provide for us. (Credit: The Washington Post)

This instinct is true of virtually all mammals and birds, even some reptiles. Since the first thing we see after birth is usually our mother we imprint on her. And since humans have always lived in groups we quickly imprint on the other members of the group, our father, siblings, and other relatives.

Most vertebrate babies imprint on their mother and follow her wherever she goes, learning how to live from her. So its very important that the babies are able to recognize her immediately. (Credit: DOGO News)

It also very important that we be able to recognize the mood other people are in. Crying for food when your mother is angry, or perhaps frightened because a predator is near is more likely to get you a slap than a meal. The shape of a smile, or a frown, and what they mean also appears to be built into our brains even before we are born. And as we grow older we become attuned to the more subtle facial expressions the different members of our group have, this ability aids in our communications with those around us.

We humans use our faces to let the world know how we’re feeling. It’s important that babies learn to interpret these expressions as fast as possible. (Credit: MDPI)

So important is our ability to detect and analyze another human face that we are unconsciously looking for human faces all the time, and all to often finding them in objects that are completely non-human. We’re all familiar with this psychological phenomenon; we’ve all at one time or another seen a human face in almost anything that vaguely resembles two eyes, a nose and mouth. Artists sometimes even toy with our mind by generating face like shapes out of things that are completely non-human.

Literally anything can appear to us to have a face. Human faces are just something we are designed to see. (Credit: KickVick)

Psychologically this phenomenon is called pareidolia and studies have shown that our minds will even attribute emotions to non-living objects if we see a face in them. Perhaps even stranger is the fact that the feeling of seeing a face, and emotions in that face will persist even after we realize our mistake and recognize that the thing we are anthropomorphizing isn’t even alive.

It’s not just humans who see faces everywhere. Here’s a dog seeing a dog’s face in a knothole. (Credit: Bored Panda)

Now a new study by neuroscientists at the University of Sydney in Australia and the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda in Maryland has examined both how a pareidolia face is detected and how the ‘expression’ on that face is analyzed. In the experiment a group of 17 student volunteers were shown a sequence of images of both actual human faces and illusionary faces on non-living objects. Forty images of each type were used with the human faces expressing emotions ranging from happy to neutral to angry.

Alternating between real human faces and pareidolia the psychologists at University of Sydney and the National Institute of Mental Health studied the reactions of their volunteer subjects. (Credit: Alais, Xu et al, Proceedings of the Royal Society)

The students were shown the images alternating between human and non-living with each image being shown eight times for a total of 320 trials. Although each image was shown eight times the order of the images was randomized so that a non-living image would follow different human faces. The students were asked to rate the emotion of the faces on both the human and illusionary faces as they saw them.

And the face doesn’t have to be head on from us to ‘see’ it. Here are a couple of facial profiles in a vase! (Credit: Etsy)

What the researchers found was that the emotional rating of the non-human faces was profoundly influenced by the emotion on the face of the human image immediately preceding it. This result indicates that our brain detects and then analyzes false faces in exactly the same manner as it does an actual human face rather than discarding the detection as a mistake. In addition, by controlling the time that the volunteers saw each image the researchers were able to estimate that our brains require only a few hundred milli-seconds to analyze even a pareidolia face.

It actually takes us only a small fraction of a second to analyze the expression on another person’s face. (Credit: ProProfs)

According to Professor David Alais of the University of Sydney’s school of Psychology and lead author of the study, “From an evolutionary perspective, it seems that the benefit of never missing a face outweighs the errors where inanimate objects are seen as faces.”

We even recognize expression in non-human objects. Does this tree trunk look thoughtful to you? (Credit: Imgur)

Which goes to show that our brains are already programmed with a variety of instincts and behaviors before we are even born, instincts and behaviors that may have served our pre-human ancestors well but some of which may actually be harmful in our modern world. We need to better understand the way our brains work if we are ever going to control the prejudices and impulses acquired by our ancestors millions of years ago.

So if we realize that we are instinctively born to see human faces in everything why do we insist that faces on other planets have to be the work of aliens? (Credit: NASA)

Is there a ‘Wild West / Pioneer mentality? A new study by Psychologists provides evidence that there just may be.

Many people picture John Wayne or some other cowboy star as the archetype of the rugged, self assured, always ready to stand up for what he thought was right American. This myth of the pioneer individualist wasn’t created by Hollywood; in fact it at least dates back to the days of James Fennimore Cooper and his character Hawkeye in ‘The Last of the Mohicans’. Still Hollywood built on that image, making the ‘Wild West’ the natural environment where America’s national character both evolved and flourished.

Like it or hate it, images like this just scream American! (Credit: Roger Ebert)
Check out the resemblances between Daniel Day Lewis as Hawkeye in ‘The Last of the Mohicans’ and John Wayne as the Ringo Kid in ‘Stagecoach’. (Credit: Graphic Arts – Princeton University)

Historically frontier regions have been known to attract people who were not only seeking a better life but a life less constrained by the rules and mores of society. In order to survive in such harsh, lonely conditions those settlers had to be not so much strong in a physical sense but resilient and adaptable. The question today would be, are those traits still present in the descendants of those pioneers one hundred years after the close of the frontier.

Does building a new life in an unpopulated wilderness require a certain type of person or breed them? Probably both! (Credit: Boston University)

So is there actually such a type of person, psychologically speaking that is, and how would we go about measuring the traits of the sort of person who exemplifies the pioneer spirit? And where would you find such a person today?

Psychologists at the University of Cambridge have attempted to do just that. Using the results of an online personality test completed by over 3.3 million Americans they employed the respondents zip codes to separate out those who lived in rugged, mountainous regions, such as the Rocky Mountains from their lower altitude, more comfortably urban neighbors. By comparing the two populations the researchers hoped to discover if the people living in harsh, unpopulated surroundings actually developed a distinct personality.

Even today living in the Rocky Mountains is rustic and can certainly generate a feeling of isolation. (Credit: Pinterest)

To carry out their analysis the researchers assessed the results of the psychological testing using a standard psychological model known as the ‘Big Five’ for five fundamental personality traits. Included in the big five model are such characteristics as ‘Agreeableness’, ‘Extraversion’, ‘Conscientiousness’, ‘Neuroticism’ and ‘Openness to Experience’.

‘Big Five’ personality traits in Psychology. As an experiment try rating yourself in these terms. (Credit: Simple Psychology)

When the inhabitants of the Rocky Mountains were evaluated according to those categories they demonstrated low levels of ‘Agreeableness’, ‘Extraversion’ and ‘Conscientiousness’. These results indicate a personality that is marked by a lack of trust, more territorial, more self reliant and rebellious. On average the Rocky Mountain residents also showed low values of ‘Neuroticism’ showing a more secure, less neurotic mental state, which would give them the mental stability to deal with problems on their own, without any help from others. Finally they showed high values for ‘Openness to Experience’ showing that Mountain folk also have to be ready to accept new situations and do whatever it takes to survive.

People in the Rockies aren’t without culture but it’s their own culture. (Credit: Twitter)

The psychologists separately analyzed the results from respondents who lived in the Appalachian Mountain regions, which were settled just about a hundred years before the Rockies, to see if there were any significant differences between the two groups of mountain dwellers. The scientists found that while the psychology of the residents of Appalachia were similar to those in the Rockies the eastern mountain inhabitants displayed more ‘Agreeableness’ and less ‘Openness to Experience’.  Could this mean that the frontier attitude lessens with time. That as a region becomes more settled, even if it remains less densely populated, the inhabitants of mountainous areas will become psychologically more similar to their low land, urbanite neighbors? That’s a question that only more data and further analysis can answer.

The similarities between the people of the Rockies and Appalachians are easy to spot but the differences are important as well. (Credit: YouTube)

What the results of the University of Cambridge do show is that the environment in which we choose to live says a great deal about our personality. And in return of course that environment will have its evolutionary effect on us. Just one more way of saying that we are a part of our environment.

Psychologist Walter Mischel, originator of the famous, or infamous Marshmallow test, dies at the age of 88.

Doctor Walter Mischel, a leading researcher in the fields of personality theory and social psychology died on the 12th of September 2018 in New York City, aged 88. At the time of his death Dr. Mischel was Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Columbia University but it was at Stanford University back in the 1960s and 70s that Dr. Mischel conducted his most well known experiments, the Marshmallow test. The image below is of Walter Mischel.

Walter Mischel (Credit: AZ Quotes)

The Marshmallow test is simple enough on the surface. The test subjects were children who all attended Stanford’s Bing Nursery School, ages 4 to 6. The children were placed in a room with only a table and chair (child sized) where an adult tester gave each child a treat, a marshmallow or a cookie. The tester told the children that if they didn’t eat the treat until the tester returned they would be given a second treat. The tester then leaves the room, usually for fifteen minutes and the child was filmed during the entire test.

The test is a study of the psychology of delayed gratification, whether or not the test subject has the patience to wait for a greater reward. Dr. Mischel’s original intent was to discover at what age between 4 and 6 this patience developed but over the course of time the test unveiled a great many other secrets as well.

The Marshmallow Test (Credit: Performance Coach University)

As you might guess, the majority of the children simply eat their treat the moment the adult leaves the room. The most interesting initial discovery however was that those children who succeeded in waiting generally did so by distracting themselves, even if it was no more than just turning their chair around so that they couldn’t see the treat. Of the 600 children who took part in the original set of tests, just over a third waited and received their promised second treat.

In 1988 and 1990 Dr. Mischel conducted a follow up study of the children who had taken part in the test and were now teenagers preparing for college. What Dr. Mischel found was that those who had as children waited and gotten the second treat had statistically preformed much better in school, even had significantly higher scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAP) needed for admission to college. It was found that even the children’s parents considered them to be more mature, more reliable. The same psychological traits that had enabled them to succeed at the marshmallow test were now allowing them to succeed in later life.

Marshmallow Follow Up (Credit: Slideshow)

This is not to say that the results of the marshmallow test can be used to predict future success. Even Dr. Mischel strongly cautioned against any such assumptions, “The idea that your child is doomed if she chooses not to wait for her marshmallows is really a serious misinterpretation,” he said in an interview. In fact later studies would show that social and economic status were critical factors in determining whether or not a child would wait for the second treat.

Before I go it’s important to note in our current political climate that Doctor Walter Mischel was an Austrian Jew whose family fled the Nazi occupation of Austria in 1938 and who entered the United States as a political refugee. Arriving in the United States at the age of eight with basically nothing Walter Mischel managed to get his Ph.D. from Ohio State University and taught at the University of Colorado and Harvard along with Stanford and Columbia. Another example of how the United States profited from someone that another country didn’t want because of blind racist hatred.

However Science can only take us so Far! (Army HEALTH)