Awareness of being under surveillance triggers heightened alertness of being watched, according to new research from Australian Neuroscientists.
While earlier work demonstrated awareness of being watched has some impact on conscious behavior, new research led by Kiley Seymour, a neuroscience and behavior professor at the University of Technology Sydney, now provides a link to unconscious, involuntary responses.
Today, cameras are everywhere, including in our pockets. Our mobile devices are easily tracked, and the ongoing move toward the ‘Internet of Things’ constantly adds new sensors and connected data points around us. Advances in neurotechnology may even make what’s happening within our minds discoverable in the years ahead.
As scientists debate the conspicuous consequences of this brave new world where we are increasingly under the microscope, Dr. Seymour decided to investigate how this could subconsciously affect our brains.
“We know CCTV changes our behaviour, and that’s the main driver for retailers and others wanting to deploy such technology to prevent unwanted behaviour,” Seymour said. “However, we show it’s not only overt behaviour that changes – our brain changes the way it processes information.”
Conducting Surveillance Research
Psychology researchers working under Seymour conducted a study on how surveillance impacted the ability of subjects to detect another’s gaze. A total of 54 undergraduate students volunteered to take part in the survey in exchange for course credit. The participants were divided into two groups. One was sent into an unmonitored room, and the other was placed in a room with a CCTV camera trained on them. To enhance the effect on the monitored group, researchers showed them a live feed of the room before they entered.
The subjects gazed into monocular monitors that periodically resolved from random visual noise into photographs of people in their non-dominant eye. In contrast, their dominant eye remained fixed on a steady image. The participants were asked to use a keyboard to indicate when the face became visible to them. Intriguingly, monitored subjects didn’t just recognize faces more quickly; they also did so with no loss of accuracy.
“Our surveilled participants became hyper-aware of face stimuli almost a second faster than the control group. This perceptual enhancement also occurred without participants realising it,” Seymour said.
Natural Facial Recognition
Detecting faces is of the utmost importance in human social interactions. When we view a human face, we analyze everything from the gaze to facial expression. This analysis produces a model of what we believe is occurring in the other person’s mind. This model allows us to predict behavior. Should we fear this person? Can we trust them? Over a long period of natural selection, human evolution favored abilities useful in detecting danger.
“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 explained.
Mental Health and Surveillance
“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,” Seymour said.
There was a significant disconnect between how subjects reported feeling while being monitored and how the data showed their brains responding. Participants reported little or no concern for the surveillance yet demonstrated a significant change in processing social situations. The change in a crucial function of the human brain was notable but imperceptible to the individual. Seymour says her findings suggested a need for society to reframe discussions about surveillance. These debates primarily weigh privacy against security as the only factors in play. Seymour says that public mental health effects stemming from constant surveillance may be an equally valid consideration.
“Whilst this investigation was specifically focussed on unconscious social processes, future investigations should explore effects on the limbic system more broadly, which would have more general implications for public mental health and the importance of privacy,” Seymour suggested regarding future avenues of research.
The paper, “Big Brother: The Effects of Surveillance on Fundamental Aspects of Social Vision,” appeared in the Neuroscience of Consciousness on December 10, 2024.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds a BA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.