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What's the Deal With Staring? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from house Stuff Works
0:05
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
0:13
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and guest producer Role is
0:17
Speaker 1: actually staying in here. I believe he's staring at It's
0:20
Speaker 1: as funny as we speak. It's making my cheek blush
0:24
Speaker 1: just the one though, Yeah, which is weird. It's a tease,
0:28
Speaker 1: is what that is. I'm anything. I'm a big tease.
0:33
Speaker 1: Uh spoiler alert? Okay, now that was it that your
0:39
Speaker 1: cheek is hot? It's a post spoiler alert post. I
0:42
Speaker 1: don't know if those work count. I think you can
0:44
Speaker 1: set the internet off into a frenzy if you do
0:46
Speaker 1: it the wrong way. Oh yes, we've done that before.
0:49
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's right, say spoiler alert beforehand. Apparently. Yeah,
0:53
Speaker 1: I thought you just spoiled it and the said spoiler
0:55
Speaker 1: alert right as a tag. It's not how it works, Uh, Chuck.
1:01
Speaker 1: Have you ever been to the grocery store? Uh? Yeah,
1:06
Speaker 1: I was there yesterday. Were you? Did you go down
1:08
Speaker 1: the steed buy cereal? I don't really buy cereal much either.
1:13
Speaker 1: I I um hate cereal. You know. I'm just glad
1:16
Speaker 1: it's still around but I just don't buy it myself.
1:18
Speaker 1: Every once a while go down the cereal, it's just
1:20
Speaker 1: almost to like visit old friends. Like there's the Count Chocula,
1:25
Speaker 1: there's Fred Flintstone, or what the heck happened to Lucky
1:28
Speaker 1: the Leopard con he doesn't look anything like you did
1:31
Speaker 1: when we were kids, you know, look at Tony Tiger. Yes,
1:34
Speaker 1: while while I'm walking down the cereal, I noticed like
1:36
Speaker 1: they don't like hold my my gaze like they used to,
1:40
Speaker 1: actually because you're not seven. No. Actually, there's this study
1:44
Speaker 1: that found and I think to the last couple of
1:48
Speaker 1: years at Cornell University, they have like a whole food
1:50
Speaker 1: psychology program. You know, I love that stuff. Um, And
1:53
Speaker 1: they did a study of like I think sixty five
1:55
Speaker 1: different cereals and found that, um, the average gaze downward
2:01
Speaker 1: gays is about a nine point six degree gays right
2:05
Speaker 1: of just your normal human walking in the serial. So
2:10
Speaker 1: like if you were looking at Tony the Tiger and
2:12
Speaker 1: you were you were me in our normal adult height,
2:15
Speaker 1: he wouldn't be locking eyes with us. But if we
2:17
Speaker 1: were little kids, he'd be looking right into our eyes.
2:21
Speaker 1: To Can Sam, To Can Sam, Lucky Captain Crunch which
2:25
Speaker 1: we talked about. Yeah, the honey Comb's Maniac. Yeah, the
2:29
Speaker 1: Goalen fiber stick. Sure, um, all of those guys they
2:33
Speaker 1: look into little kid's eyes. And the whole reason why
2:36
Speaker 1: is because, um, it builds brand trust and brand loyalty.
2:40
Speaker 1: Among um cereal boxes where the character is looking right
2:44
Speaker 1: into your kid's eyes on the cereal aisle, there's like
2:47
Speaker 1: pent brand loyalty compared to like six among boxes that
2:51
Speaker 1: don't have little characters looking into your kid's eyes. And
2:55
Speaker 1: it all just kind of goes to show you, Like
2:58
Speaker 1: the stair even being stared at by a lifeless cardboard
3:05
Speaker 1: cartoon character is that powerful that it can It can
3:09
Speaker 1: make you say, I want to eat what's inside of you?
3:14
Speaker 1: You know, So the gaze it's powerful. Or like the
3:18
Speaker 1: old days when I was single and I would go
3:20
Speaker 1: into a bar and just like go right up beside
3:23
Speaker 1: a lady and just stare at her face until she
3:26
Speaker 1: looked at me. Make your eyes as wide as you
3:28
Speaker 1: possibly could. They love that stuff. Sure, very powerful. It
3:31
Speaker 1: shows what a panther you are. Creep is what that
3:35
Speaker 1: would be. Sure, Yeah, And I mean that's a that's
3:38
Speaker 1: a really great point. Like if it's a leprechn on
3:40
Speaker 1: a cereal box. You're not threatened or intimidated by it,
3:43
Speaker 1: but there's still some sort of power to its gaze. Right,
3:46
Speaker 1: if you're another human being that is so powerful, it
3:50
Speaker 1: has to be wielded very delicately. Because people don't like
3:55
Speaker 1: to be stared at, as as this this House to
3:57
Speaker 1: Works article points out, it's simply rude to stare. Yeah,
4:01
Speaker 1: it can be. I mean, depending on what culture you
4:04
Speaker 1: live in, it can be everything from intimidation tactic to
4:08
Speaker 1: a to an affront to like something that's very aggressive.
4:13
Speaker 1: Um yeah, it means a lot of things around the world.
4:15
Speaker 1: But I didn't find a lot of cultures where it
4:17
Speaker 1: was super nice. No, the closest thing I can find
4:21
Speaker 1: was Argentina being called out um as it being socially
4:25
Speaker 1: acceptable for men to stare at women. That doesn't mean
4:29
Speaker 1: that it's welcomed, right, it's not welcome necessarily or wanted,
4:34
Speaker 1: but it's not like what are you doing kind of thing.
4:38
Speaker 1: But I couldn't find any culture around the world where
4:40
Speaker 1: just outright staring is just normal and fine. It seems
4:45
Speaker 1: to be like universally it makes people uncomfortable. It seems like, yeah, well,
4:49
Speaker 1: this article we're gonna draw from a few, but one
4:52
Speaker 1: from our own website. Why is it rude to stare?
4:54
Speaker 1: Which it never really answers Actually no, it doesn't. Just
4:58
Speaker 1: sort of give some reason stands to around. But um,
5:00
Speaker 1: I did think they made a good point whoever wrote
5:02
Speaker 1: this early on in the article, uh, that humans are
5:08
Speaker 1: constantly categorizing things when we look around at anything, uh
5:13
Speaker 1: from inanimate objects. You know, that desk looks comfortable, or
5:17
Speaker 1: that chair looks nice, or that car is cool, or
5:22
Speaker 1: that person is white. Uh, that person is a woman,
5:27
Speaker 1: that person is attractive, that person isn't. Like we're always
5:30
Speaker 1: scanning and dropping things into different mental boxes. And uh
5:36
Speaker 1: so they make a pretty good point. I think whenever
5:39
Speaker 1: something is just slightly off, um, like that person has
5:43
Speaker 1: one leg it just the brain has an instinct to
5:48
Speaker 1: to stay stay on that gaze a little longer because
5:52
Speaker 1: it just disrupts the normal. Like that's a thing, that's
5:55
Speaker 1: the thing, that's the thing, and that's a difference. So
5:56
Speaker 1: let me look at that for a minute. And the
5:58
Speaker 1: the whole idea behind us walking around constantly scanning our
6:02
Speaker 1: environment is this idea that we've evolved to At first,
6:06
Speaker 1: I guess probably hunt for predators. Remember, in like the
6:10
Speaker 1: gun control episode, we talked about how humans can recognize
6:14
Speaker 1: a gun in the environment as readily as recognizing snakes
6:17
Speaker 1: or spiders. So we're training to to pluck stuff out
6:21
Speaker 1: of our environment that may or may not be a
6:23
Speaker 1: threat as we've kind of moved away from the possibility of, um,
6:28
Speaker 1: you know, a bear eating you. Typically it still happens infrequently,
6:33
Speaker 1: but for the most part, we're not threatened by bears. Right. Um,
6:37
Speaker 1: We've we've that same ability has kind of moved into
6:41
Speaker 1: this social realm where that whole in group out group
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Speaker 1: categorization that we've talked about two really kind of comes up.
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Speaker 1: And so we're walking around saying, you're okay, You're all right,
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Speaker 1: you may be a threat, So I'm gonna move over
6:54
Speaker 1: here on the other side of the street. I don't
6:56
Speaker 1: necessarily recognize you, but we can do all this like
6:59
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. Right. But it's like you were saying, if
7:02
Speaker 1: you see somebody with missing a face, for example, is
7:06
Speaker 1: a good is a good one? Um? And I read
7:08
Speaker 1: this Wired article that cited a woman who basically was
7:11
Speaker 1: like she her husband shot her in the face, and man,
7:14
Speaker 1: she walked around before a face transplant, like missing a
7:17
Speaker 1: significant section in the middle of her face, and she
7:20
Speaker 1: just was stared at all the time. She said she
7:22
Speaker 1: had to get used to it. Um. This article points
7:25
Speaker 1: out that all you're doing necessarily is taking in more
7:29
Speaker 1: information than you're used to, and we we do that
7:34
Speaker 1: by staring. It's a result of saying, there's more info
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Speaker 1: than I can just get through with a quick glance.
7:40
Speaker 1: I need to look at you a little while longer. Uh.
7:43
Speaker 1: And then there was a study at usc AS in
7:46
Speaker 1: southern California telve. This one makes a lot of sense
7:49
Speaker 1: to me because I think what you're doing is you're
7:51
Speaker 1: satisfying a curiosity like, um, I guess Oscars histories is
7:57
Speaker 1: a weird example now that he's gone through that thing.
8:01
Speaker 1: But let's say pre that, uh, pre that incident, you
8:05
Speaker 1: would see someone like Oscar Oscar pistories and say, wow,
8:09
Speaker 1: I want to see how this guy runs without legs.
8:13
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna look at him put on those blades
8:15
Speaker 1: and and run. And of course he's a you know,
8:18
Speaker 1: it's a spectator sport anyway. But I mean it happened
8:22
Speaker 1: any day, like, uh, someone who's handicapped, Like, I wonder
8:26
Speaker 1: how they drive a car with no legs, so it's
8:30
Speaker 1: very interesting. So I'm gonna look at that and watch
8:33
Speaker 1: them get in the car and have a specially outfitted
8:35
Speaker 1: car with hand operation. So it's it's it's weird because
8:41
Speaker 1: it's in that case, I don't think it's rude, but
8:43
Speaker 1: you're walking a fine line, but it is still very rude.
8:46
Speaker 1: Another UM non murderous example, like the second one you gave,
8:50
Speaker 1: is UM. There was in this study at USC they
8:53
Speaker 1: used UM women with a novel biological effectors, meaning in
8:58
Speaker 1: this case that their arms hadn't fully developed, but they
9:01
Speaker 1: were performing functions that people would normally use their hands
9:05
Speaker 1: for with their residual limbs. Right, So someone might be like, wow,
9:09
Speaker 1: how is she painting or cooking her dinner? Exactly? But
9:13
Speaker 1: at the same time, you're right, you're walking that fine line,
9:15
Speaker 1: so you're staring, but maybe you look away, but then
9:18
Speaker 1: you look back and you kind of to take it
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Speaker 1: in in pieces, because we are in this weird position
9:24
Speaker 1: where we want to take in but we're also socialized
9:28
Speaker 1: to not stare as well, it's rude. Well, what they
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Speaker 1: determined in the study though, which sort of backs up
9:34
Speaker 1: the idea that it is satisfying the curiosity is they
9:37
Speaker 1: looked at the brains of people like staring at uh,
9:40
Speaker 1: let's say the lady without the formed limbs. And after
9:45
Speaker 1: they looked for a little while, the brain lit up
9:47
Speaker 1: at first like, oh my gosh, what am I seeing?
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Speaker 1: This is super interesting, and then the brain normalized. I
9:52
Speaker 1: was like, oh, okay, well that's how she cooks her dinner.
9:54
Speaker 1: That's really neat exactly, and then they were able to
9:57
Speaker 1: interact normally after that point. So it's almost like, as
10:01
Speaker 1: long as your brain hasn't gotten enough information to its satisfaction,
10:07
Speaker 1: you're not gonna feel comfortable. There's gonna be something weird
10:10
Speaker 1: and different around. And if you interact with somebody before
10:13
Speaker 1: you've sat your you've satisfied your brains, you need to
10:16
Speaker 1: understand what the heck is going on there. Um, then
10:20
Speaker 1: you might not interact with them as comfortably as you
10:22
Speaker 1: would if you were able to sit there and take
10:24
Speaker 1: it back. And they did this by having people watch
10:27
Speaker 1: other people through like a one way mirror, I think,
10:31
Speaker 1: and watched them for a few minutes their brains, I
10:33
Speaker 1: guess became satisfied or figure it out, you know, what
10:36
Speaker 1: the process was. And then after that they interacted with
10:38
Speaker 1: the people much more normally than they did before they
10:41
Speaker 1: were able to fully satisfy their brains curiosity. Yeah, it's
10:44
Speaker 1: like this might be a pretty lame example, but it's
10:47
Speaker 1: like if you have a huge ZiT on the end
10:49
Speaker 1: of your nose and you walk into a group of
10:52
Speaker 1: friends for a meeting, you might say it, just get
10:56
Speaker 1: over with I got this huge ZiT on my nose,
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Speaker 1: like Fred Savage and Austin Powers the Mole, like acknowledging it. Hey,
11:03
Speaker 1: I got this huge thing. Instead of being weird about it,
11:06
Speaker 1: just ahead and take a good gander. Isn't it amazing?
11:09
Speaker 1: And now let's just act normal. And then nine times
11:11
Speaker 1: out of ten people are like, yeah, great, I just
11:13
Speaker 1: put my hand in front of my face and pretend
11:15
Speaker 1: that nothing's different. Is the makeup not working? But the
11:19
Speaker 1: thing is, it's you know, it's it. You know you
11:23
Speaker 1: people have zits themselves, fairly well understood and it's transient,
11:28
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So there is definitely looking
11:30
Speaker 1: at somebody who is differently abled or um just different
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Speaker 1: in any way it can be considered rude, but especially
11:37
Speaker 1: if that person has to put up with it again
11:39
Speaker 1: and again. But I think there's just not that understanding
11:42
Speaker 1: of what is the basis of it, and of course
11:45
Speaker 1: kids are going to do that, and his parents you
11:47
Speaker 1: are probably Johnny on the spot by saying, don't stare
11:50
Speaker 1: at that person, that lady without a face. She you know,
11:53
Speaker 1: it's not nice. Uh, Whereas the kids just thinking like
11:57
Speaker 1: I've never seen someone without a face, right, and the
11:59
Speaker 1: parent you I was thinking that same thing, but they're
12:01
Speaker 1: just having to do the parental thing and you know,
12:05
Speaker 1: like steal a quick glance and then tell the kid
12:08
Speaker 1: not to stare because it's been socialized out of them. Yeah,
12:10
Speaker 1: it's super interesting to me, but it seems to be
12:12
Speaker 1: innate because kids do it and then they have to
12:15
Speaker 1: be taught not to do it, right, So I wonder
12:18
Speaker 1: almost if it's then in that, in that circumstance, if
12:21
Speaker 1: it's like a vestigial trait, you know, like it's an
12:25
Speaker 1: innate thing that like the kid is responding to the
12:27
Speaker 1: kids evolutionary history, but it hasn't been socialized to not
12:32
Speaker 1: do that yet. So there's like this social layer that's
12:35
Speaker 1: being put on top of an evolutionary trait. So staring
12:40
Speaker 1: seems pretty straightforward, so far right. Actually, it gets way,
12:43
Speaker 1: way more complex, and we will dig into that right
12:46
Speaker 1: after this. So we're back and we're talking about being
13:10
Speaker 1: stared at, which, by the way, I didn't get a
13:12
Speaker 1: chance to listen to it, but um, Robert and Julie
13:14
Speaker 1: at stuff to blow your mind? Did this did a
13:17
Speaker 1: staring episode a few years back? Safe to one, I
13:23
Speaker 1: would guess, yeah, yeah, Um again, I don't know. I'm
13:27
Speaker 1: sure they did, though, now that you mentioned so, um, Chuck,
13:31
Speaker 1: we're talking about staring in how you know, maybe the
13:34
Speaker 1: evolutionary adaptations to it. Um, And there's a further idea
13:39
Speaker 1: that we've actually evolved. Our eyes have evolved to really
13:46
Speaker 1: understand when somebody's looking at us, right. I think it's
13:48
Speaker 1: pretty neat the gays detection system. Yeah, they make the
13:52
Speaker 1: point in here, which article was just from this one
13:54
Speaker 1: was from psychology today. Basically, the difference, the main difference
13:58
Speaker 1: between humans and lot of animals is with people, you
14:02
Speaker 1: can see a lot more whites of the eye than
14:05
Speaker 1: you can with most animals. So the dark parts, that is,
14:09
Speaker 1: the parts that look at you, Uh, you can really
14:12
Speaker 1: tell when those things are moving around, right exactly. You
14:16
Speaker 1: can tell when you're being looked at a lot more easily. Yeah. So, like,
14:18
Speaker 1: if the dark parts are in the center of the eye, roughly,
14:21
Speaker 1: you can assume that you're being looked at. If the
14:24
Speaker 1: dark parts are to the right, the person is looking
14:26
Speaker 1: to the right. If the dark parts are to the left,
14:28
Speaker 1: vice versa. Right, Yep, I'm looking at Nual out of mine.
14:31
Speaker 1: I guess you would say peripheral vision exactly. So, and
14:35
Speaker 1: I can just I can relax because you're not looking
14:38
Speaker 1: at me. You're looking at Nual, So I can go
14:40
Speaker 1: back to knitting or starting fires whatever. Um, But Noel
14:44
Speaker 1: needs to be on his best behavior. And that's actually
14:47
Speaker 1: one of the two um suggestions for why we're so
14:51
Speaker 1: responsive to being looked at. Like, there's there's a couple
14:54
Speaker 1: of things. So this gaze detection system they've they've determined that, um,
14:59
Speaker 1: if you are looking towards me, chuck, but over my shoulder,
15:04
Speaker 1: and I can just kind of tell, right, so your
15:06
Speaker 1: head is looking at me, your eyes are generally I mean,
15:08
Speaker 1: but you're just like a degree or two off, Like
15:11
Speaker 1: right now, is that weird? Yeah, right now you're say
15:12
Speaker 1: it is kind off putting, but right now you're setting
15:15
Speaker 1: off a different kind of neuron in my brain. Then
15:17
Speaker 1: you are. Now that you're looking directly at me. Now,
15:20
Speaker 1: different neurons are firing, like specific neurons for when someone
15:23
Speaker 1: is looking right at you fire, which is exactly like
15:26
Speaker 1: we have basically a region of the brain dedicated to that. Yeah,
15:29
Speaker 1: and I have to say you and I are like
15:31
Speaker 1: staring at each other way more than normal in this episode.
15:35
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, interesting, or maybe we're just talking about it
15:38
Speaker 1: more than you so I'm not sure. Uh. The other
15:41
Speaker 1: cool thing is they you tend in your peripheral vision
15:44
Speaker 1: to notice more when uh like, instead of someone just
15:49
Speaker 1: looking at you straight on with their body in their face,
15:51
Speaker 1: if someone is looking from the side and turning their
15:54
Speaker 1: head completely uh to the right to look at you,
15:58
Speaker 1: that will stand out a lot more in your peripher
16:00
Speaker 1: vision than someone just standing staring straight at you. Yeah,
16:02
Speaker 1: which is super weird. It really is. Today, when I
16:05
Speaker 1: was driving in um there was this woman walking her
16:08
Speaker 1: baby in a stroller down the street and I was
16:11
Speaker 1: just looking at her kid, and I was driving parallel
16:14
Speaker 1: to her, but my head I'm sure was turned toward them.
16:18
Speaker 1: She wasn't looking anywhere near me, and just all of
16:20
Speaker 1: a sudden, she turns her head and just completely like
16:23
Speaker 1: meets my gaze right like like she saw somehow, probably
16:28
Speaker 1: in her peripheral vision, that there was somebody in a
16:31
Speaker 1: car looking at her kid and she needed to check
16:34
Speaker 1: it out, so she threw the cover over the stroller
16:36
Speaker 1: real quick. It's like a monster. Uh, yeah, it's it's
16:42
Speaker 1: I don't know. I find all this stuff fascinating, Like
16:45
Speaker 1: whether or not you can feel when you're being stared
16:48
Speaker 1: at directly to your back. Let's say, well, that's something different.
16:52
Speaker 1: So like this, all of the the sum up to this point, Uh,
16:56
Speaker 1: we've been talking about stuff that can be explained away
16:58
Speaker 1: using like your peripheral vision, noticing other people's body language, um,
17:04
Speaker 1: looking at where the eyes are. Now we're getting into
17:08
Speaker 1: just some weirdness and something called the psychic staring effect
17:11
Speaker 1: or scope pastigia, or the feeling that you're being stared
17:15
Speaker 1: at from behind, even though there's no way using your
17:20
Speaker 1: normal senses, you should be able to tell that someone
17:22
Speaker 1: is looking at you. Yeah, and this, Uh, there was
17:25
Speaker 1: a paper. This is from the article of the Feeling
17:26
Speaker 1: of being stared At. And there's an old paper from
17:31
Speaker 1: from Science magazine called the Feeling of being stared At
17:34
Speaker 1: by Edward uh Kitchener and he said, and this was
17:41
Speaker 1: sort of a weird feedback loop, but he said, if
17:43
Speaker 1: you go to the front of a room and you
17:45
Speaker 1: have your back to everyone, you're gonna feel like you're
17:47
Speaker 1: being stared at, and then you're gonna get nervous and
17:50
Speaker 1: start fidgeting around, which will cause people to stare at you.
17:54
Speaker 1: So that doesn't too much for me. He also he
17:57
Speaker 1: also said, um, it's possible that it's um when you
18:03
Speaker 1: think someone staring at you, you start to turn around
18:06
Speaker 1: to see them, to catch somebody staring at you, or
18:10
Speaker 1: to see who it is, and they'll then look at
18:12
Speaker 1: you right. They notice you moving and they start looking
18:15
Speaker 1: at you. Before you've made it all the way around,
18:17
Speaker 1: you were looking at me, and you say, no, jerk,
18:21
Speaker 1: didn't look at you until you turn around, looked at
18:22
Speaker 1: me right, and then it just turned into a fist
18:25
Speaker 1: fight every time without fail. So Tischner basically was like,
18:29
Speaker 1: it's all illusory, it's it's done. He didn't really write
18:32
Speaker 1: necessarily about all of his methods or study size or
18:36
Speaker 1: anything like that, but um, he he felt like he
18:39
Speaker 1: kind of settled it. Fifteen years later, there was a
18:42
Speaker 1: guy who picked it up again. His name was je Coover.
18:45
Speaker 1: He wrote another paper called the Feeling of Being Stared At,
18:48
Speaker 1: and he tried a little more scientifically to figure out
18:51
Speaker 1: what was going on, and he had a pretty cool
18:54
Speaker 1: I thought his technique was pretty awesome. Um. He would
18:58
Speaker 1: sit there and have a study participant with his back
19:02
Speaker 1: to him, and he would roll a dice a die,
19:05
Speaker 1: and if it came up even, he would not stare
19:08
Speaker 1: at them for fifteen seconds. If it came up odd,
19:12
Speaker 1: he would stare at them for fifteen seconds. And then
19:15
Speaker 1: each time the person needed to write down what they
19:17
Speaker 1: thought whether they were being stared at or not. Yeah,
19:20
Speaker 1: and it was lined up pretty consistently. Um. But what
19:24
Speaker 1: this UH points out, in what a few of the
19:26
Speaker 1: other staring studies point out, is if you know you're
19:29
Speaker 1: in a staring study, you may be more clued in
19:33
Speaker 1: even if you're blindfolded to think like, oh, you know,
19:36
Speaker 1: I feel like someone staring because I'm supposed to write
19:39
Speaker 1: exactly like you're thinking about being stared exactly. So Um.
19:43
Speaker 1: In this je Coover study from UM, he found that
19:49
Speaker 1: people guessed at about fifty They were right about fifty
19:52
Speaker 1: percent at the time, which is even with chance. Right,
19:54
Speaker 1: So that suggests that you don't really have a any
19:58
Speaker 1: kind of signal or scent that you're being stared at.
20:01
Speaker 1: You're just guessing and you're primeed to being guests and
20:03
Speaker 1: yeah like um. Follow up studies have shown that if
20:07
Speaker 1: people are distracted with another task or if they don't
20:11
Speaker 1: think the studies actually about whether or not they're being
20:13
Speaker 1: stared at, they almost never guessed that they're being stared at. Um.
20:17
Speaker 1: It only starts to show up in studies where you're
20:19
Speaker 1: testing for that sense of being stared at and they're prime.
20:23
Speaker 1: But even then they're just guessing at about the same
20:26
Speaker 1: rate as chance. So Tishner and Coouver and others later
20:31
Speaker 1: on over the years have basically suggested that scope pastigia,
20:34
Speaker 1: or that feeling you're being stared at, is very widespread.
20:38
Speaker 1: Most people believe that they can tell when somebody staring
20:40
Speaker 1: at them, but that it's actually an illusion that isn't
20:43
Speaker 1: necessarily explained in any of these but it is. It
20:46
Speaker 1: is a widespread illusion that humans tend to suffer from
20:50
Speaker 1: universally well and anecdotally. You might remember the times where
20:55
Speaker 1: I feel like someone staring at me and someone is,
20:57
Speaker 1: but not remember the times that you feel like someone
21:00
Speaker 1: staring at you, and you look up and no one's
21:02
Speaker 1: staring like you don't catalog that. Well. That was another
21:05
Speaker 1: thing they found too, is that there's no no one's
21:08
Speaker 1: ever found any any idea that you can tell when
21:11
Speaker 1: you're not being stared at. It's just it's just being
21:15
Speaker 1: stared at that we suppose you have a sense for
21:17
Speaker 1: all right, Well, let's take another break here and we'll
21:18
Speaker 1: talk about a few more weird staring studies right after this. Hey,
21:32
Speaker 1: everybody out there in podcast land, we want to alert
21:34
Speaker 1: you to what we're going to call a podcasting event,
21:37
Speaker 1: an event like the moon landing, but for podcasting. Basically.
21:40
Speaker 1: That's right. It's a new podcast from ge Podcast Theater
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Speaker 1: that's pretty much gonna blow your scientific mind. Yep. The
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Speaker 1: including iTunes, g E, podcast theaters. The message All right, alrighty,
22:34
Speaker 1: we're back. And here's a weird staring study. Yeah, they've
22:37
Speaker 1: done a lot of them. And this is from an
22:39
Speaker 1: article of the many creepy experiments and involves staring at
22:41
Speaker 1: people on I O nine. Uh great website. So this one,
22:45
Speaker 1: um the Stairs, a Stimulus to flight and human subjects,
22:49
Speaker 1: was I thought pretty interesting and kind of a no brainer. Basically,
22:53
Speaker 1: they would have someone stand on a corner and then
22:55
Speaker 1: when people would pull up in their car at the
22:58
Speaker 1: light of the stop sign, they would just stare at
23:01
Speaker 1: them in their car, and then they would time how
23:04
Speaker 1: long it took them to get the heck out of
23:06
Speaker 1: there when the light turned green. And of course, naturally
23:09
Speaker 1: they don't even release the results. Imagine it was about
23:14
Speaker 1: the people sped out of there when the light turned green. Yeah,
23:16
Speaker 1: they had a control group that they specifically didn't stare
23:19
Speaker 1: at or look at, and they definitely left that intersection
23:23
Speaker 1: much more slowly. Yeah, because there's not a creep leering
23:27
Speaker 1: at you on the sidewalk. Yeah. That's a weird study,
23:30
Speaker 1: but I mean, I guess it added to the scientific
23:32
Speaker 1: body on staring by one. Um this one. I thought
23:37
Speaker 1: this was interesting because it actually harkens back to uh
23:39
Speaker 1: what Titchener studied too, was that there's this weird part
23:44
Speaker 1: of the psychic staring effect where you you physically you
23:48
Speaker 1: can feel like you're being stared at, Like the back
23:51
Speaker 1: of your neck gets hot. When I was in college,
23:54
Speaker 1: I used to like my scalp would get hot or something,
23:57
Speaker 1: you know, like I could just I just knew I
23:59
Speaker 1: was being stared at from behind. Um. And this this
24:03
Speaker 1: study found that we we produce some sort of physical
24:06
Speaker 1: effect when we're stared at. Right, So they had this
24:10
Speaker 1: in this particular study, they had UM, a psychologist sitting there,
24:14
Speaker 1: I guess interviewing a person, and then another psychologist would
24:18
Speaker 1: be staring at the person while they were forced to
24:22
Speaker 1: either read out loud or sing. Yeah, the person being
24:25
Speaker 1: stared at would have to do those things. Yeah, thank
24:28
Speaker 1: you for specifying that. And um, the other the second
24:31
Speaker 1: psychologists would stare like directly at their cheek and the
24:35
Speaker 1: person would blush all over, especially if they were having
24:38
Speaker 1: to sing, but the cheek that was being stared at
24:41
Speaker 1: would blush more, it would get hotter, like physically, they
24:44
Speaker 1: would measure this. Yeah, it wasn't just anecdotally, like my
24:48
Speaker 1: right cheek feels hotter. No, and it's no one has
24:53
Speaker 1: any idea how this happens or why this happens. But
24:55
Speaker 1: it's almost like the self consciousness that's produced in being
24:59
Speaker 1: stared at is directed to the specific part of the
25:03
Speaker 1: body that's being looked at. You know. That's very bizarre. Ye. Well,
25:10
Speaker 1: because they haven't figured it out. I know, they'll probably
25:13
Speaker 1: isolate something at some point. Yeah, eventually they will. But
25:16
Speaker 1: I mean, like, if you start to compile like this
25:19
Speaker 1: body of knowledge on staring, you get the idea that
25:23
Speaker 1: we have a very loose grasp on the effects of
25:26
Speaker 1: staring and what it what it does, and what it signifies,
25:29
Speaker 1: and why it's around. You know. Yeah, it's pretty interesting.
25:32
Speaker 1: I always loved those episodes. I do too. There was
25:36
Speaker 1: this other study I thought was pretty interesting called gaydar
25:39
Speaker 1: colon I gaze as identity recognition among gay men and lesbians,
25:45
Speaker 1: and I tried to find a copy. I couldn't find
25:47
Speaker 1: one that I didn't have to pay like fifty bucks for,
25:49
Speaker 1: but I did read some summaries. It basically looks into
25:52
Speaker 1: how how gay men and women use a stare to
25:57
Speaker 1: either assess someone actuality or to broadcast their own sexuality.
26:03
Speaker 1: And it's not always just a fixed gaze, you know,
26:06
Speaker 1: not something like creepy stare. But it was mixed with
26:09
Speaker 1: like body language and looking away, uh, and like a
26:12
Speaker 1: flirtation at times. But I thought it was pretty interesting.
26:15
Speaker 1: It's definitely not just like some heterosexual concept um and
26:20
Speaker 1: staring is not just creepy. It's not just for flirting.
26:22
Speaker 1: They've actually found in other studies that it's a it's
26:25
Speaker 1: a way to um to ask for help actually, and
26:30
Speaker 1: it gets results supposedly. Yeah, this one didn't make a
26:32
Speaker 1: ton of sense to me. So, like, if you spilled
26:35
Speaker 1: some groceries, I think is what this one study did.
26:38
Speaker 1: If you drop some groceries and you bend over and
26:40
Speaker 1: picked them up, If you just like kind of keep
26:43
Speaker 1: to yourself and like bend over your groceries and you're
26:46
Speaker 1: looking down at I mean, you got it, you know
26:48
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. In this study, if you look up though,
26:51
Speaker 1: and you're staring at a passer by while you're doing this.
26:54
Speaker 1: They take that as an invitation, if not a directive,
26:57
Speaker 1: to come help them pick up the groceries, and people
27:00
Speaker 1: respond to that. It's the same thing. I think about it,
27:02
Speaker 1: like if somebody is in a situation where they could
27:06
Speaker 1: use help, but it's also ambiguous, like they kind of
27:09
Speaker 1: got it, but did they really need help? If they're
27:11
Speaker 1: looking at you, they're broadcasting help me. They are. It's
27:14
Speaker 1: just kind of funny because I'm trying to think of
27:16
Speaker 1: it just seems like a no brainer. Like if I
27:19
Speaker 1: saw a woman in a parking lot who would like
27:21
Speaker 1: spilled her groceries and I was walking by and she
27:23
Speaker 1: looked up right at me as I was passing and
27:25
Speaker 1: picking up, I wouldn't just so like, how you doing
27:28
Speaker 1: and keep going, Yeah, boy, you look like you got
27:32
Speaker 1: it under control, like I would. Of course I would stop.
27:35
Speaker 1: But if she didn't look up, yeah, maybe I would
27:38
Speaker 1: feel like I'm intruding, you know, so they doesn't want
27:41
Speaker 1: me putting her hands on her groceries, right, And that
27:45
Speaker 1: is like, like that is one of the theories behind
27:49
Speaker 1: why we're so adept at catching other people's gazes is
27:54
Speaker 1: that it's a it's a means of communicating non verbally,
27:57
Speaker 1: very directly. Right. So, so that woman who dropped their groceries,
28:01
Speaker 1: or anybody who drops their groceries, if they're handling themselves,
28:04
Speaker 1: leave them alone. If they're looking up directly at you,
28:07
Speaker 1: they're communicating with you. They have spilled their groceries. And
28:10
Speaker 1: what they're saying is I could do some help with
28:11
Speaker 1: some groceries taking them up. Um. And that's that. That
28:15
Speaker 1: theory behind that, The idea that we communicate and and
28:20
Speaker 1: engage in social behavior just from looking is called the
28:23
Speaker 1: cooperative eye hypothesis. And it's basically this idea, that cooperative
28:30
Speaker 1: eye hypothesis. It's a little worth but lit like I
28:32
Speaker 1: could see like a math rock band. It's no Kathleen
28:35
Speaker 1: Turner Overdrive maybe the best band name of all time. Um.
28:40
Speaker 1: But this, this whole thing is that we we are
28:43
Speaker 1: able to communicate, um, not just that we need help,
28:46
Speaker 1: but also we tend to follow one another's gaze. If
28:49
Speaker 1: one person is looking off in the distance and clearly
28:52
Speaker 1: looking at something not zoned out, people are gonna look
28:55
Speaker 1: over there. And it's basically the same thing as like
28:57
Speaker 1: a herd of gazelle looking over what one because Ellen
29:00
Speaker 1: hi alert is suddenly looking at Yeah. You wanna you
29:02
Speaker 1: wanna have some fun. Go to New York City or
29:05
Speaker 1: any city and just with one other person and just
29:09
Speaker 1: go stand and both look up and stare at something
29:12
Speaker 1: and then just sit back. Well you can't sit back,
29:15
Speaker 1: but have a friend sit back and watch how many people?
29:18
Speaker 1: And in New York, of course they won't stop and look,
29:20
Speaker 1: but everyone that passes you by will look up and say,
29:23
Speaker 1: what in the world are these two people looking at?
29:25
Speaker 1: What are you looking at? Yeah? What's up there? You're
29:30
Speaker 1: staring and you just don't say anything, And then a
29:33
Speaker 1: game of telephone will break out. People will just start
29:36
Speaker 1: making up what's up there? Yeah? And then it becomes
29:39
Speaker 1: a what do you call it when people all get
29:42
Speaker 1: together and dance at one time? Some flash mob? Flash mob?
29:47
Speaker 1: That's an organic flash Yeah, you have a bunch of
29:49
Speaker 1: people staring. Um, it's very boring flash mob. I got
29:52
Speaker 1: one more, all right. The idea that UM being aware
29:58
Speaker 1: of being stared at is basically keeps us in line
30:02
Speaker 1: the idea that we're being stared at or watched. Yeah,
30:07
Speaker 1: another socially pro social motivation. UM and I got another
30:12
Speaker 1: grocery store. Example, I was at the grocery store yesterday
30:15
Speaker 1: and I was walking in the parking lot and this
30:19
Speaker 1: woman had her cart and I noticed her like looking around,
30:23
Speaker 1: and she was about to leave her cart right there
30:25
Speaker 1: and the parking lot next sor she saw me looking
30:28
Speaker 1: at her, and she like just suddenly went and walked
30:30
Speaker 1: it over the car corral. I could tell by her
30:32
Speaker 1: movement she was not playing on going to the car
30:34
Speaker 1: correl until she saw me watching her, and then she
30:37
Speaker 1: took it to the car crawl. And I'm like, yes, exactly.
30:41
Speaker 1: You engage in more ethical behavior if you think you're
30:43
Speaker 1: being watched, and that would explain why we're so. We're
30:47
Speaker 1: such a social species and they just having that height
30:52
Speaker 1: and awareness that you're being watched is possibly part of that. Yeah,
30:56
Speaker 1: that's one of my couple of big rules in life
31:00
Speaker 1: are meaningless to most people. But always return your card, yeah,
31:05
Speaker 1: you honest, people like, oh they pay people to go
31:07
Speaker 1: around and get the carts. It's because they have to
31:10
Speaker 1: write because of you. And the other thing is, uh,
31:13
Speaker 1: always throw your movie theater popcorn and drinks away on
31:18
Speaker 1: your way out. The people that just get up and
31:22
Speaker 1: leave the movie theater with their popcorn bag and their
31:25
Speaker 1: drink there. Yeah, I just don't get it like those are.
31:31
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go and say it. Those are the
31:32
Speaker 1: worst people on the planet. If you want to become
31:36
Speaker 1: canonized Chuck, not only should you return your cart, you
31:41
Speaker 1: can do the opposite and take a cart from somebody
31:44
Speaker 1: so they don't even have to take it back. If
31:46
Speaker 1: you're on your way in, you have done that. That's
31:50
Speaker 1: I rarely use the big card though. I'm I do
31:53
Speaker 1: a lot of daily grocery shopping. Good way to go.
31:57
Speaker 1: It's very Dutch, is it? According to the stuff for
32:01
Speaker 1: the next article, it is. Yeah, Well I wear my
32:03
Speaker 1: wooden clogs and ride my bicycle. Very stude of you,
32:08
Speaker 1: Thank you? Are you got anything else? You know what?
32:10
Speaker 1: This just reminded me. I did have one slight more
32:12
Speaker 1: thing you've heard of? Viddlel igo. Um what Michael Jackson
32:16
Speaker 1: had the skin condition where parts of your skinner lighter
32:19
Speaker 1: than others. I posted on Facebook there was this uh
32:23
Speaker 1: young woman who has viddle igo on her arms, and
32:26
Speaker 1: she finally just got a tattoo and lovely script on
32:29
Speaker 1: her forearm that said it's called a viddle igo, And
32:32
Speaker 1: I posted about this, and then she apparently listened to
32:36
Speaker 1: the show and she posted, thanks for sharing this guy. Yeah,
32:39
Speaker 1: I thought it was kind of neat. But I'm curious
32:42
Speaker 1: to hear from people that have I can't remember what
32:45
Speaker 1: they call them in the studies, novel novel biological effects. Right, Basically,
32:51
Speaker 1: you know something unusual physically that people might be prone
32:55
Speaker 1: to stare at. I want to hear from people and
32:57
Speaker 1: how you deal with that, or if you've gotten used
32:59
Speaker 1: to it, or if you think it is super rude,
33:02
Speaker 1: or if you're like, yeah, I would stare at me too. Yeah,
33:05
Speaker 1: but that is a great call out. Yeah. Um, and
33:08
Speaker 1: well let's see listener mail and then we'll hit it
33:10
Speaker 1: up again. All right, uh La Tortos. My name is
33:15
Speaker 1: Amy and I'm an English teacher living abroad in Malaga, Spain.
33:19
Speaker 1: I'm a recent fan and only discovered your podcast when
33:21
Speaker 1: I was desperate for something to listen to on the
33:23
Speaker 1: metro rides when everybody comes to it. The first podcast
33:28
Speaker 1: I listened to us how Nazis invaded Florida, and I
33:30
Speaker 1: haven't stopped downloading now. The real reason I'm sending the
33:33
Speaker 1: emails a little strange. I teach many adult classes my
33:36
Speaker 1: students are always asking how they can practice listening to
33:38
Speaker 1: native speakers. Many people don't know that in Spain all
33:41
Speaker 1: of the American or English TV series or movies are dubbed.
33:44
Speaker 1: I did not know that in Spanish voice that right
33:46
Speaker 1: didn't have any I figured like a high percentage would be,
33:49
Speaker 1: but not all of them, you know. Uh, so there
33:52
Speaker 1: isn't aren't many options to practice listening skills. Once I
33:56
Speaker 1: got addicted to your show, I started suggesting that my
33:58
Speaker 1: higher level students listening does as well. Honestly didn't think
34:01
Speaker 1: many of them would actually go home and start listening. However,
34:04
Speaker 1: I was wrong, and this is an all caps Every
34:08
Speaker 1: single one of them are now addicted like me. That's
34:10
Speaker 1: so awesome, and then back to regular non all caps. Yeah,
34:15
Speaker 1: so thanks guys. Uh. My students want me to send
34:17
Speaker 1: an email to say thank you for speaking slow but
34:19
Speaker 1: not too slow, and using vocabulary that makes any topic
34:24
Speaker 1: of science, astrophysics, biology, and history easy to understand. I've
34:28
Speaker 1: noticed a big change in their listening skills, and even
34:30
Speaker 1: have the entertainment of teaching some puns and slang that
34:34
Speaker 1: you both say on the show. It makes class much
34:36
Speaker 1: more enjoyable. The only bad side is now they want
34:39
Speaker 1: a tour of the UK so we can all come
34:41
Speaker 1: to see you guys live. That's so cool. See everybody
34:44
Speaker 1: in the United States. Oh, you guys aren't coming to St. Louis.
34:47
Speaker 1: It can't possibly come to you. People are talking about
34:49
Speaker 1: traveling from Spain to England to see Yes. Seriously, come on,
34:53
Speaker 1: don't go to Milwaukee. I'm in Madison. Uh, keep on
34:59
Speaker 1: showing out this podcast US and aste Lawego Amy Culver Amy,
35:05
Speaker 1: thank you for that. I love that email. That's a
35:07
Speaker 1: great email. Uh Asta Leavista to your class. Thank you
35:11
Speaker 1: very much for writing in UM and Uh. That's wonderful.
35:15
Speaker 1: I hope you guys keep listening. We're known for US slang,
35:18
Speaker 1: aren't we get on the trolley? Chuck? Yeah, that old thing. Uh.
35:23
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us to
35:25
Speaker 1: say hi in another language, that's cool. But like Chuck said,
35:29
Speaker 1: we want to hear from you if you have a
35:31
Speaker 1: novel biological effect or and get stared at and what
35:34
Speaker 1: you do in dealing with that. Um. You can tweak
35:37
Speaker 1: to us at s Y s K podcast. You can
35:40
Speaker 1: join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you should know.
35:42
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35:45
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us
35:47
Speaker 1: at our home on the web, Stuff You Should Know
35:49
Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
35:57
Speaker 1: is it how stuff Works dot com.