Every time you walk down a city street, electronic eyes are watching. From security systems to traffic cameras, surveillance is ubiquitous in modern society. Yet these cameras might be doing more than just recording our movements: according to a new study that peers into the psychology of surveillance, they could be fundamentally altering how our brains process visual information.
While previous research has shown that surveillance cameras can modify our conscious behavior – making us less likely to steal or more inclined to follow rules – a new study published in Neuroscience of Consciousness suggests that being watched affects something far more fundamental: the unconscious way our brains perceive the world around us.
“We found direct evidence that being conspicuously monitored via CCTV markedly impacts a hardwired and involuntary function of human sensory perception – the ability to consciously detect a face,” explains Associate Professor Kiley Seymour, lead author of the study, in a statement.
Putting surveillance to the test
The research team at the University of Technology Sydney, led by Seymour, designed an ingenious experiment to test how surveillance affects our unconscious visual processing. They recruited 54 undergraduate students and split them into two groups: one group completed a visual task while being conspicuously monitored by multiple surveillance cameras, while the control group performed the same task without cameras present.
The monitored group was shown the surveillance setup beforehand, including a live feed of themselves from the adjacent room, and had to sign additional consent forms acknowledging they would be watched. To ensure participants felt the full weight of surveillance, cameras were positioned to capture their whole body, face, and even their hands as they performed the task.
The visual task itself employed a clever technique called continuous flash suppression (CFS), which temporarily prevents images shown to one eye from reaching conscious awareness while the brain still processes them unconsciously. Participants viewed different images through each eye: one eye saw rapidly changing colorful patterns, while the other saw faces that were either looking directly at them or away from them.
‘Ancient survival mechanisms’ turn on when being watched
The results were remarkable: “Our surveilled participants became hyper-aware of face stimuli almost a second faster than the control group. This perceptual enhancement also occurred without participants realizing it,” says Seymour. This held true whether the faces were looking directly at them or away, though both groups detected direct-gazing faces more quickly overall.
This heightened awareness appears to tap into ancient survival mechanisms. “It’s a mechanism that evolved for us to detect other agents and potential threats in our environment, such as predators and other humans, and it seems to be enhanced when we’re being watched on CCTV,” Seymour explains.
Importantly, this wasn’t simply due to participants trying harder or being more alert under surveillance. When the researchers ran the same experiment using simple geometric patterns instead of faces, there was no difference between the watched and unwatched groups. The enhancement was specific to social stimuli – faces – suggesting that surveillance taps into fundamental neural circuits evolved for processing social information.
Effects on mental health and consciousness
The findings have particular relevance for mental health. “We see hyper-sensitivity to eye gaze in mental health conditions like psychosis and social anxiety disorder where individuals hold irrational beliefs or preoccupations with the idea of being watched,” notes Seymour. This suggests that surveillance might interact with these conditions in ways we don’t yet fully understand.
Perhaps most unsettling was the disconnect between participants’ conscious experience and their brain’s response. “We had a surprising yet unsettling finding that despite participants reporting little concern or preoccupation with being monitored, its effects on basic social processing were marked, highly significant and imperceptible to the participants,” Seymour reveals.
These findings arrive at a crucial moment in human history, as we grapple with unprecedented levels of technological surveillance. From CCTV cameras and facial recognition systems to trackable devices and the “Internet of Things,” our activities are increasingly monitored and recorded. The study suggests that this constant observation may be affecting us on a deeper level than previously realized, modifying basic perceptual processes that normally operate outside our awareness.
The implications extend beyond individual privacy concerns to questions about public mental health and the subtle ways surveillance might be reshaping human cognition and social interaction. As surveillance technology continues to advance, including emerging neurotechnology that could potentially monitor our mental activity, understanding these unconscious effects becomes increasingly crucial.
Source: https://studyfinds.org/big-brother-watching-surveillance-changing-how-brain-works/
