“There's an even more powerful internal force at work, illustrated by a very interesting study done in the 1960s. A man by the name of Lester Luborsky used a special camera to track the eye movements of people who were asked to look at a set of pictures, three of which involved sexual images. One, for example, showed a woman's breast, beyond which could be seen a man reading a newspaper. The results were amazing. Many viewers were able to avoid letting their gaze stray even once to the sexually suggestive parts of the pictures, and later, when asked to describe the content of the pictures, they remembered little or nothing suggestive about them. Some people couldn't even recall having seen those three pictures at all.

What interests me is that, in order to avoid looking at the objectionable parts of the pictures, those people had to know in some part of their minds what the picture contained so that they could know to avoid it. In other words, when the mind detects something offensive or threatening to our worldview, it somehow deflects our awareness. This avoidance system is incredibly efficient. We know exactly where not to look.” (SUN magazine, June 2000)
(Goleman, Vital Lies, Simple Truths - The Psychology of Self-Deception, Bloomsbury, 1997, p.107)

2/16/2006 10:58:55 AM

Religious fundamentalism in a nutshell.

[Edited on February 16, 2006 at 11:02 AM. Reason : .]

2/16/2006 11:02:04 AM

it's EVERYTHING in a nutshell.

we know that there's a problem, but we refuse to admit it, and we force ourselves to forget it. we're all guilty of that.

2/16/2006 11:05:53 AM

How do you look at a picture of a breast and not say "its a picture of a breast"

2/16/2006 11:09:31 AM

well, i unfortunately can't find the original study, but i'd assume these images were shown to people who he knew would be offended by nudity

2/16/2006 11:18:27 AM

meh

2/16/2006 11:29:51 AM

this thread is useless without pictures

2/16/2006 11:33:10 AM

I guess that's how the g0vt maintains it's position on marijuana....

2/16/2006 11:47:06 AM

Quote :

"we know that there's a problem, but we refuse to admit it, and we force ourselves to forget it. we're all guilty of that."

Maybe so, but some people are at least interested at getting to the bottom of the problem.

2/16/2006 12:55:57 PM

This thread isn't really here.

2/16/2006 1:26:16 PM

^^^ Shut your fucking pie hole. This has nothing to do with marijuana...

unless you're a worthless cheebah-monkey that thinks that everything has to do with marijuana. Your revolution is over, sir. The bums lost.

2/16/2006 2:51:06 PM

^ His point is that people are inclined to ignore facts that are deemed offensive, in either content or consequence.

The idea that marijuana is actually virtually harmless offends people who want an excuse to ban it.

I think his point was astute -- it's pretty bad when even a fucking pot head contributes more to a thread than you. How does it feel?

2/16/2006 3:01:22 PM

2/16/2006 3:10:48 PM

Quote :

"His point is that people are inclined to ignore facts that are deemed offensive, in either content or consequence. The idea that marijuana is actually virtually harmless offends people who want an excuse to ban it. I think his point was astute -- it's pretty bad when even a fucking pot head contributes more to a thread than you. How does it feel?"

seconded


oooooooooh burn

2/16/2006 3:20:39 PM

This study only used sexual images to represent things we consider offensive. The only conclusions you can make are about our response to sexual images, not offensive topics in general.

[Edited on February 16, 2006 at 4:10 PM. Reason : .]

2/16/2006 3:50:05 PM

I'm trying to figure out how they remembered anything BUT the sexual images.

Scientist: There was a man with a newspaper in the background.

Subject: I saw a titty!

2/16/2006 4:05:39 PM

I'm aware of Hempsters point. However, I grow weary of him yacking about marijuana in every post. Out of every noble cause in the world, he has chosen to crusade for the pettiest one. I'm not saying that he didn't have a point, nor did I miss the one that he made, I'm simply calling him a worthless cheebah monkey.

Quote :

"it's pretty bad when even a fucking pot head contributes more to a thread than you."

No shit. Telling someone to shut up was not meant to be a contribution.

2/16/2006 4:24:13 PM

If you feel the need to troll, go to chit chat.

There's enough stupid fucking trolling on this board -- there needs to be more civil discourse, and calling him a name (especially a particularly unimaginative one -- you sure you don't want to try a joint or two?) impresses nobody.

2/16/2006 4:44:44 PM

Trolling? I get tired of seeing a stoner turn every topic into an unintelligent marijuana discussion, I would hate to see this civil discourse turn into another circle jerk about the need to legalize it.

I'm not trying to impress anyone, brainiac.

2/16/2006 4:55:37 PM

This kind of unconscious filtering is ubiquitous. It takes anywhere from 250-800 ms (depending on age, etc) for a stimuli to become integrated into the conciousness, plenty of time for filtering to take place. Cultural conditioning certainly plays some role in the nature of this filtering, but a lot of it is just to ensure that the amount of information you are receiving about the world is small enough to integrate and act on (hempster this process actually uses endocannabinoids to a large extent: they are a part of the major mechanism that keeps people from remembering everything about everything they see... it is also why chronic marijuana use leads to memory problems.) I couldn't find the original paper, but a few that cited what I believe to be it and they all relate to very short term exposure to such a stimuli.

If only a breast was present in an image that also had a picture of someone reading a newspaper it makes sense that the viewer would recall only the man reading the paper: the mind is much less likely to "discard" a face as we have hard-wired pattern recognition neural circuits that respond to faces and general body shapes. It is doubtful that just a giant breast at the side of the picture would pass this filter in very short time frames.

This is a virtually instantaneous filter and, though it may make for an eloquent summary of humanity, the mechanisms working on such a short term are very different from those operating in the long term avoidance of issues.

btw, i think the original paper is "Looking, recalling, and GSR as a function of defence" L Luborsky, B Blinder, J Schimek - Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1965

[Edited on February 16, 2006 at 4:59 PM. Reason : .]

2/16/2006 4:59:07 PM

you didn't factor in the eye-tracking into your point

2/16/2006 9:07:22 PM

http://www.cs.vu.nl/~cogsci/cogpsy/theeuwes/Visual_Cogntion_Faces.pdf


[Edited on February 16, 2006 at 9:32 PM. Reason : as]

2/16/2006 9:31:54 PM