As you walk down the street, electronic eyes are watching you. From security systems to traffic cameras, surveillance is ubiquitous in modern society. But these cameras could do more than just record our movements: They could fundamentally change the way our brains process visual information, according to a new study looking at the psychology of surveillance.
While previous studies have shown that surveillance cameras can change our conscious behavior—making us less likely to steal or more likely to follow rules—a new study published in Neuroscience of Consciousness suggests that surveillance affects something much more fundamental: the subconscious way our brains perceive the world around us.
“We found direct evidence that conspicuous CCTV surveillance significantly disrupts a hard-wired and involuntary function of human sensory perception—the ability to consciously recognize faces,” Associate Professor Kiley Seymour, the study’s lead author, said in a statement.
Monitoring on the Test Bench
A research team at the University of Technology, Sydney, led by Seymour, developed a sophisticated experiment to test how surveillance affects our subconscious visual processing. They recruited 54 students and divided them into two groups: One group performed a visual task while being conspicuously observed by multiple cameras, while a control group performed the same task without cameras.
The monitored group was shown the surveillance setup beforehand, including a live broadcast of themselves from an adjacent room, and had to sign additional consent forms acknowledging that they would be monitored. To ensure that participants felt the full impact of the surveillance, the cameras were positioned to capture their entire body, face, and even hands as they performed the task.
The visual task itself used a clever technique called Continuous Flash Suppression (CFS), which temporarily prevents images viewed by one eye from being consciously perceived while the brain is still unconsciously processing them. Participants viewed different images with each eye: one eye saw rapidly changing color patterns, while the other saw faces that were either looking directly at them or looking away from them.
‘Ancient survival mechanisms’ are activated when you’re watched
The results were striking: “Our watched participants were almost a second faster at recognizing facial cues than the control group. This improvement in perception also occurred without the participants realizing it,” says Seymour. This was true regardless of whether the faces were looking directly at them or away, although both groups were overall faster at recognizing faces that were looking directly at them.
This heightened awareness appears to be based on ancient survival mechanisms. “It’s a mechanism that evolved to help us detect other agents and potential threats in our environment, such as predators and other people, and it seems to be enhanced when we’re being watched via video surveillance,” explains Seymour.
Importantly, this wasn’t just a result of the participants trying harder or being more attentive while watching. When the researchers ran the same experiment using simple geometric patterns instead of faces, there was no difference between the observed and unobserved groups. The improvement was specific to social stimuli—faces—suggesting that monitoring was tapping into basic neural circuits that evolved to process social information.
Effects on mental health and consciousness
The results are particularly relevant to mental health. “We see hypersensitivity to eye contact in mental illnesses like psychosis and social anxiety disorder, where people have irrational beliefs or are afraid of the idea that someone is watching them,” notes Seymour. This suggests that monitoring may interact with these conditions in ways that we don’t yet fully understand.
Perhaps most troubling was the discrepancy between the participants’ conscious experience and their brains’ responses. “We made a surprising but disturbing discovery: although participants reported little concern or fear of being monitored, the effects on basic social processes were clear, highly significant, and imperceptible to the participants,” Seymour reveals.
These findings come at a pivotal time in human history, when we are grappling with unprecedented levels of technological surveillance. From surveillance cameras and facial recognition systems to trackable devices and the “Internet of Things,” our activities are increasingly being tracked and recorded. The study suggests that this constant surveillance could affect us at a deeper level than previously thought, altering basic perceptual processes that normally occur outside of our awareness.
The implications extend beyond individual privacy, to questions of public mental health, and the subtle ways in which surveillance could alter human perception and social interaction. As surveillance technology continues to advance, including emerging neurotechnology that could potentially monitor our mental activity, understanding these subconscious effects will become increasingly important.
Like the study participants who recognized faces more quickly when being watched, we may all be unconsciously adapting to our increasingly monitored world in ways we don’t yet fully understand. Big Brother, it seems, is not only watching us, but also changing the way we see the world.
Paper Summary
Methodology
The researchers used a specialized visual technique called continuous flash suppression (CFS) where participants view different images through each eye using a mirror stereoscope. One eye sees a rapidly changing colorful pattern while the other sees a face that’s either looking directly ahead or away. The changing pattern temporarily prevents conscious awareness of the face, but the brain still processes it unconsciously. By measuring how quickly participants become aware of the face’s location (left or right of center), researchers can gauge how efficiently their visual system is processing this information. The study compared two groups: one being monitored by multiple cameras (experimental group) and one without cameras (control group).
Results
The watched group detected faces significantly faster than the control group, with almost a full second difference in detection speed. This held true for both direct-gaze and averted-gaze faces, though direct-gaze faces were detected more quickly by both groups. Importantly, when the experiment was repeated using simple geometric patterns instead of faces, there was no difference between groups, showing the effect is specific to social stimuli. The watched group also showed higher accuracy in detecting face locations.
Limitations
The study used a relatively small sample size of undergraduate students, potentially limiting generalizability. The surveillance condition used multiple cameras in an obvious way, which might not perfectly mirror real-world surveillance situations where monitoring is often more subtle. Additionally, the study only examined short-term effects of surveillance, leaving questions about long-term impacts unanswered.
Discussion and Takeaways
This research reveals that surveillance affects not just conscious behavior but also unconscious perceptual processes, specifically in processing social information like faces. The effect appears to operate outside awareness, as participants reported only mild feelings of being watched despite showing significant changes in visual processing. This suggests surveillance might have deeper psychological impacts than previously recognized, with potential implications for public mental health and social interaction in increasingly surveilled societies.
Funding and Disclosures
The paper states that no specific funding was declared for this research, and the authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study was approved by Western Sydney University’s Human Ethics Committee.
Source: https://studyfinds.org/big-brother-watching-surveillance-changing-how-brain-works/
Image: Pixabay.com
