Surveillance cameras certainly have a deterrent effect on ill-intentioned individuals who fear being caught red-handed, in the middle of their crime, by a strategically placed objective. But researchers have now established that these same cameras also change the behavior of good people and, as reported in an article published on the Study Finds site, sharpen their senses, even their paranoia.
Researcher Kiley Seymour, from the University of Technology Sydney in Australia, publishes the fruit of her work in the journal Neuroscience of Consciousness. She shows that the presence of cameras in a place conditions the ability of individuals to detect information, in this case known faces, in their environment. Surveillance changes conscious behavior, but also the attention we unconsciously pay to the world around us.
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To highlight this phenomenon, the team of researchers approached fifty-four students and asked them to carry out tasks consisting of detecting information in images sent distinctly to each eye, human shapes and faces, the brain must then prioritize this information. Half of the subjects were not aware of being observed, the others were warned of the presence of cameras and even had to sign consent forms relating to this surveillance, to fully feel the weight of this inquisition.
«Our monitored participants became hyperaware of facial stimuli almost a second faster than the control group. This improvement in perception also occurred without the participants realizing it, explains Kiley Seymour. We have established clear evidence that being overtly monitored by cameras significantly impacts an instinctive (not voluntary) capacity of human sensory perception»continues the researcher.
Social stimuli and ancestral reflexes
Awareness of surveillance not only sharpened subjects' attention and concentration. Indeed, when the experiment replaced human faces with various geometric shapes, the differences between the two groups faded. It is therefore the ability to identify a face, and therefore a potential threat, which unconsciously becomes more acute when we feel the weight of surveillance.
This increased awareness seems to call upon ancient survival mechanisms, according to the researcher. These would have evolved to detect in these “social stimuli” potential threats in our environment, such as predators and other humans, and they “seem to be reinforced when we are monitored by video surveillance», Specifies Kiley Seymour. The researcher emphasizes the unconscious nature of this mechanism since, she adds, this phenomenon manifests itself in participants who reported little worry or concern regarding being monitored.
This aspect must therefore be taken into account when it is necessary to assess the relevance of installing a surveillance system in an environment where certain people present certain mental health disorders. This phenomenon is in fact likely to deteriorate cases of psychosis or social anxiety by exerting additional pressure with the presence of cameras.
The researcher admits, it is quite difficult to explain why what she sees as an ancestral survival reflex is triggered when we know we are being observed by cameras. Does this perceived surveillance increase awareness of danger? Or does our brain have the reflex to say to itself: “Hey, they’re looking at us here, try to show a little liveliness, don’t shame us”? There you have it, the legacy of our ancestors: to avoid being exterminated by predators in full view of their contemporaries who might make fun of them.
