vix86 wrote:
For some reason I'm reminded of the synesthesia plot line in Railgun...
Regardless, this isn't necessarily a new find, if anything I would say its simply further proof of something we've known for awhile. Humans aren't well equipped to judge their environmental in a disconnected state (I forget the way my professor explained it).
Example: If you want to improve your standing with a single woman/guy, the best time to try it is after they have been working out. The reason is that many will often mistake their bodies reactions (fast heart rate, sweating, hot/blushing, etc.) to you as infatuation. They proved this by having two groups of people talk with someone of the opposite sex. One group got a drink that was laced with a stimulant (or something of the like) and the other just got a normal beverage. The stimulant raised the heart rate and caused sweating/blushing. The drugged group rated higher ratings of attraction to the other. Case in point, how our body is affects the way we judge a situation.
I don't know about that particular area, sounds a bit NLP to me, and a cursory check tells me that bodily arousal doesn't trigger emotional arousal (here), even though there's the whole Ekman/facial feedback thing (although I always caution against folks reading too much into Ekman's research, re: the show Lie To Me)... but here's another recent related article: Can Blocking a Frown Keep Bad Feelings at Bay?
"There is a long-standing idea in psychology, called the facial feedback hypothesis," says Havas. "Essentially, it says, when you're smiling, the whole world smiles with you. It's an old song, but it's right. Actually, this study suggests the opposite: When you're not frowning, the world seems less angry and less sad."
The Havas study broke new ground by linking the expression of emotion to the ability to understand language, says Havas's advisor, UW-Madison professor emeritus of psychology Arthur Glenberg. "Normally, the brain would be sending signals to the periphery to frown, and the extent of the frown would be sent back to the brain. But here, that loop is disrupted, and the intensity of the emotion, and of our ability to understand it when embodied in language, is disrupted."
Just from your example I'd say that, you know, being on drugs helped them feel more attracted. ;p
Edit: Odd, I've actually studied this 'misattribution of arousal' theory before but didn't recall until I did more research (thinking of that study about men who watched gay films and those who showed signs of the most arousal were the most homophobic in their vocal reactions). Still, it seems very 'iffy' to me... here's one summary from 2007... 'Iffy' isn't the word I'm looking for. Broader and more conditional, more indirect is what I was going for. Here's more on excitation transfer.
Personally I try to keep my focus, emotion-wise, on particular areas--I kind of view those older ('60s-'80s seems to the the bulk of the research), highly contextual studies to be built on a less steady framework than current views such as affective neuroscience (Panksepp).
Last edited by nest0r (2010 February 03, 2:53 pm)
