WARPED PERCEPTIONS
As a two-time All-American golfer for the University of Georgia, I can personally attest to the illusory perspective that the hole is larger on some days compared with others, as Andrea Anderson writes in “Towering Targets” [Head Lines].
That being said, my purpose for writing you has nothing to do with golf or any other sport but addresses the topic of perception itself as it relates to what people perceive to be true. Your article mentioned a general consensus that “what we see is often not an accurate reflection of the world around us.”
Forget about the size of a baseball; if what you say is true about the inaccuracy of our perceptions, how can we be as sure as we are about the perception of our enemies—especially when you mix in some fear, anger and emotional sensitivity? Is our perception accurate enough to justify hurting or killing our enemies? Shouldn’t we be more concerned about finding the truth behind our perceptions?
At this point in our evolution, I would hope that humankind could reach a general consensus on what is real. Unfortunately, that does not appear to be an accurate reflection of the world around us. I recommended this story to all of my friends and encouraged them to question the accuracy of their judgments. Great article!
Jeremy Parrott
Marietta, Ga.
REMEMBER THE BAD
“Lingering Lies,” by Valerie Ross [Head Lines], reports that even when people understand, remember and believe a retraction, misinformation will still affect their inferences. Perhaps it should. After all, something makes lawyers reveal inadmissible evidence. Or, using the example in the study, there was probably a reason the original report said the bus passengers were elderly instead of a young hockey team. Without knowing why information was said to be wrong, can we really dismiss it? Perhaps the hockey team’s coach was elderly, thus confusing the person who gave the first report. Remembering what was told us incorrectly might give us clues to a more complete picture.
“David N’Gog”
commenting at www.ScientificAmerican.com/Mind
RELIEF FROM PANIC
Regarding Paul Li’s answer about panic attacks in Ask the Brains, I would like to relate my own experience. Many years ago I started getting panic attacks. I couldn’t drive over bridges or on freeways. I couldn’t go to concerts or movies or be in enclosed spaces such as elevators. My attacks were just as Li described. I was debilitated for many years.
Then one day I heard on NPR about a young woman whose doctor put her on propranolol to keep her heart rate from rising. I realized that if I could keep my heart rate under control, maybe I could avoid panic attacks altogether. I called my doctor, and he said that this drug is used for stage fright. That is exactly how a panic attack feels.
I started taking propranolol, but it took three months before I got up the nerve to test its effect. I finally called a good friend, and we drove across every bridge in my city. I felt great and have never had another attack since. For me, propranolol is a miracle drug.
Susie Stanton
via e-mail
See what we're tweeting about
24 Comments
Add CommentI've recently come across some data they may shed some light on the subject of pornography, and it's potential negative effects/outcomes. "Viewing images of sexually attractive women and men may lead people to devalue their own partners and relationships." (Kenrick & Gutierres, 1980; Kenrick et al.,1989) Furthermore, "viewing X-rated sex films similarly tends to diminish people's satisfaction with their own sexual partner." (Zillman, 1989) "Reading or watching erotica may create expectations that few men and women can fulfill." (Myers, 2010)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"may", "tends" and another "may" . . . what gets left out is the logical corollary "may not". Too much of what passes for scientific writing and just possibly scientific research itself is the publication of possibilities without the acknowledgement of its unverified and potentially unverifiable nature. "Maybe" always in implies "and maybe not".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeople seem to forget that pornography is FICTION. A necessity component of properly enjoying any work of fiction is suspension of disbelief.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe problem with relation to pornography is that consumers may not have sufficient real-world experience to know whether they should consider what they see as documenting something that routinely occurs in the real world, or as a "set piece" involving extensive preparation, rearranging of events to "tell the story", and occasionally Olympic-grade gymnastic skills.
Of course pornography can create false expectations and dissatisfaction with real partners if consumers don't realize they *should* disbelieve what they see.
Somehow, I don't think requiring porn to have "this is a work of fiction" disclaimers will help, though.
Your information is outdated and wrong. The Swedes was doing the same research about the same time and their findings were the opposite of Kendrick's. Kendrick was being politically correct in his findings to lessen teen pregnancies according to church standards and to promote celibacy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisViewing pornography actually improved relationships by lessening guilt feelings and allowing the couple to try a new kind of closeness and it also curbs curiosity in young people and actually cut down on teen pregnancies and teen partner abuse.
Here in the United States, teen pregnancies are back on the rise because the school and churches are making young people feel ashamed about their desires for each other, so they sneak around and fulfill their desires for each other. Let them look at pornography, it is healthy and natural.
With respect to pornography, I would have to say that the evidence being so diverse would tend to suggest that there is no clear or obvious effect of watching porn. If a good portion of studies suggest one thing and a good portion suggest something quite diffent, I submit that the effect is quite small. The burden of proof resides with the group proclaiming an effect as the null hypothesis should be that the consumption of porn has no noticable effects. If the best that can be done is to show that some negative effect "may" exist, it seems the nay side has a lot more work to do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Saffy Casson:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are wrong to connect pornography to prostitution. People don't have to be paid to record their sexual activities, some of them do it out of sheer pleasure. And even when paid for it, you shouldn't automatically assume that it's damaging to them in any way. You just can't generalize like that. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.
@Percival:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPornography is not fiction. Anything that involves real people experiencing real events is reality, even if the event is simulated. The only way pornography could be fiction is if it was created using computer-created simulations of people.
1oldsarg, you call that research unverified and "potentially unverifiable" based on the cautious language used in the published statements, but your argument does not address any of the actual research, only the wording used.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@thevillagegeek said, in reply to 1oldsarg: "your argument does not address any of the actual research, only the wording used."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1oldsarg could not criticize the actual research because we were only presented with a summary of the original research that was too sketchy to allow for such criticism. What he focused on instead were the weasal words in the research summary. Frankly, I agree with 1oldsarg: in my experience, words like "may" and "tends" are rarely signs of caution; more often than not, they are weasal words designed to hide a political agenda behind a scientific veneer. George Orwell warned us of similar tricks in political writing. And whenever I hear journalists use phrases like "appears to be" or "it would seem", then I know that they are trying to sell us their opinions by dressing them up to look like facts. This is intellectual mendacity, and 1oldsarg is warning us to innoculate ourselves against such phrases with a healthy dose of scepticism.
Saffy Casson: "Porn" represe3nts a value judgement. "simple facts, decency and indecency are reactions in the mind to reality. Reality is often just what we make of it, depending on how we have been brain-washed by our cults and institutions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBill Larue, before you lash out at5 me, realize that "pornography," like beauty6 iS in thye eye of the beholder. A dirty mind can make anything seen or felt into somethying dirty if it is filtered through a dirty mind. So I pity the poor silly folk who view anything as pornographic. That says nothing about what they are attacking but speaKS volumes abour their dirty minds. I once displayed a watercolour of Adam and Eve as CREATED AND spontaneously moving kitists, playing under a playful sun. Some little old blue-hair ladies banned it from thyeir museum in Albany, GA on grounds that I had depicted everything that showed what God had created, asmy Adam and Eve kitists romped innocently, trying to get thei9r kites up. One suggested that getting the kites up could only have been a metaphore for the guy getting an erection!Bill and all: Thanks for affording me a chNCE AFTER ALL THESE DECADES TO TELL THOSE UGLY OLD WOMEN THAT THEY WERE WRONG AS WELL AS SEXLESLY UGLY! SINCE i HAVE A VISION OF THEm HAVING SHRIVELED OLD GENITALS THAT I would NEVER PAINT because I could no more see beauty there thsn I could see sexuality! I'd love to show that painting (the kitists, not the swhriveled, ugly genitals) here; but I don't know how to get it up here!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere did all my comments go, short time passing. Where did all my comments go, short time ago!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere did all my comments go, short time passing. Where did all my comments go, short time ago!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn all my comments which your editorial board chose to repress, I have harped on one point: Pornography like beauty is in the eye and brain of the beholder which is interpreting in terms of value judgements brain-washed into them during their developmentBut there is nothing in reality called "porn." Porn is a perception in the mind of the beholder! Dirty minds see dirty worlds!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI guess I'll have to cancel my subscription to Scientific American since you seen so Unamerican as to editorialize some views out of view.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell I won't add a veneer of respectability to Big Brother!
The best reason to limit use of pornography, in my opinion, is the need to exercise our imaginations. The world would be a better place if your average citizen could imagine their way out of the proverbial wet paper bag. If you take the whole moral aspect out of it, porn becomes like white suger, bad for you but if taken in moderation- not such a big deal.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOther studies have shown that the same thing happens if you are just "around" more attractive people, regardless of pornographic content. An example of this is the higher rate of divorce among academic who are around young, nubile, students all day.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe opinion in this article only addresses the positive/negative effect of porn on heterosexuals. What is the effect on same gender involved porn? Please don't discount this as valuable/useful inquiry because of the greater number of heterosexual porn users. It has value because of probable use in extended space flight when heterosexual interaction may be counter productive of mission essentials. Porn viewing may provide positive dividends in a workplace where sex has no support in company policy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMoodie-1, you wrote:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Pornography is not fiction. Anything that involves real people experiencing real events is reality, even if the event is simulated."
So you consider other genres of movies to be "reality" as long as no CGI is involved? Porn isn't "real events", it's highly stylized, some might say idealized, depictions of human sexuality the same way frinst a cop-buddy movie is not a representation of "real events".
Any cop who expects a typical day on the street to resemble say Eddie Murphy's "Bad Boys" will be as dissatisfied as you would if you expect your next sexual encounter to resemble any porn film, and for the same reasons.
A long time ago, our culture made the terrible mistake of considering sex and its associated aspects (like nudity) as something dangerous and sinful, justifiable only in the framework of religiously condoned reproduction (let's be thankful for that little exception, because without that "sinful" thing there's no reproduction).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems to me that triyng to sweep something as natural and basic under the carpet is what brings about so much of the dark side of the sexual industry.
The day our societies free themselves from this stupid prejudice, we'll all be far better off.
Oldvic: "A long time ago, our culture made the terrible mistake..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's difficult to say it was a mistake if one takes the appropriate historical perspective. People long ago were not idiots. They could easily see that people who were "promiscuous" suffered from the effects of sexually transmitted diseases far more often than those who were not. Some religions banned eating certain foods because, as we know now eating those types of foods resulted in sickness and disease.
It really had nothing to do with 'stupid prejudice'. Just observing and drawing the correct conclusions. That people of the past integrated these observations into their religious beliefs was perfectly normal behaviour for humans.
I could end the argyment if I could sisplay my water colour of Adam and Eve as God made them flying kites while playing spontaneously
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet me explain what I mean in a little more detail. Picture the following scenario:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1 - millennia ago, people noticed that unrestricted sex, apart from all the usual consequences, led to greater incidence of certain diseases - observation and data gathering: basic science.
2 - from this observation a conclusion was drawn, stating that sex should be "handled with care" if one was to avoid such diseases - practical advice derived from the previous observation: basic technology.
3 - at some point, some societies decided to introduce this hygienic rule into their religious beliefs, along with an enormous load of guilt and threats of retribution, either imagined from a deity, or very real from the religious zealots in society. Not content with that, they went on to link all matters related to sex (such as nudity) with this burden of guilt and fear.
Uh-oh, as they say. Step 3 was not one of our finest intellectual hours, and one which continues to this day to pollute our social life. It's exactly our historical perspective that allows us to see that it was a terrible mistake. The fact that it may have been natural at the time doesn't mean it wasn't wrong and ultimately counterproductive. There were other strategies available to mankind, even in those days.
To conclude, let me point out that the "stupid prejudice" assertion in my comment concerns the present day, when we already know what causes sexually transmitted diseases and how to avoid them. There's no valid reason NOW to not get rid of this ridiculous primitivism, other than the inertia of tradition.
Dr. Whom - any one taking a basic course in science knows that correlation is not causation, however, a partner who engages in an "autoerotic private life" may not be causing the relationship the harm, it very may well may that the aspects involved in maintaining an "autoerotic private life" causes other issues, such as, as a simple as, the refractory period. If an orgasm is achieved, many people, according to the famous Master's and Johnson's study, experience a refractory period after orgasm, thus, if a person was satisfied then why need a partner? If you really are a doctor, I hope your are not telling your patients to "grow up" when it comes to the effects of pornography in a relationship. Remember, there is research that shows these effects and a good doctor would acknowledge them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this