Erotic Images Can Turn You Blind

[iGuest 3]

Erotic images can turn you blind

 

18:09 12 August 2005

NewScientist.com news service

Gaia Vince

 

Researchers have finally found evidence for what good Catholic boys have known all along – erotic images make you go blind. The effect is temporary and lasts just a moment, but the research has added to road-safety campaigners’ calls to ban sexy billboard-advertising near busy roads, in the hope of preventing accidents.

 

The new study by US psychologists found that people shown erotic or gory images frequently fail to process images they see immediately afterwards. And the researchers say some personality types appear to be affected more than others by the phenomenon, known as “emotion-induced blindness”.

 

David Zald, from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and Marvin Chun and colleagues from Yale University in Connecticut, showed hundreds of images to volunteers and asked them to pick a specific image from the rapid sequence. Most of the images were landscape or architectural scenes, but the psychologists included a few emotionally charged images, portraying violent or sexually provocative scenes.

 

The closer these emotionally charged images occurred prior to the target image, the more frequently people failed to spot the target image, the researchers found.

 

“We observed that people failed to detect visual images that appeared one-fifth of a second after emotional images, whereas they can detect those images with little problem after neutral images,” Zald says.

 

Primitive brain

“We think there is essentially a bottleneck for information processing and if a certain type of stimulus captures attention, it can jam up the bottleneck so subsequent information can’t get through,” Zald explains. “It appears to happen involuntarily. The stimulus captures attention and once allocated to that particular stimulus, no other stimuli can get through” for several tenths of a second.

 

He believes that a primitive part of the brain, known as the amygdala, may play a part. That region is involved in evaluating sensory input according to its emotional relevance and has an autonomic role, influencing heart rate and sweating.

 

“It is possible that emotionally-charged stimuli produce preferential rapid routing of the impulse that bypasses the slower cortical route via the amygdala," Zald told New Scientist. "Patients with amygdala lesions pick out the target image without reacting to violent images, although they show normal blindness reactions when sexual images are introduced, which suggests another mechanism may also be involved.”

 

Harm avoiders

The researchers think emotion-induced blindness could lead to drivers simply not seeing another car or pedestrian if they have just witnessed an emotionally charged scene, such as an accident or sexually explicit billboard.

 

The effect could exacerbate the more obvious problem of drivers simply being distracted by large, arresting images. "It's the responsibility of drivers to ensure that when they are behind the wheel they keep their eyes on the job in hand," says a spokeswoman from Brake, a UK road safety organisation.

 

And some people are more vulnerable than others. The study assessed participants using a personality questionnaire, rating them according to their level of “harm avoidance”. Those scoring highly were more fearful, careful and cautious; those scoring low were more carefree and more comfortable in difficult or dangerous situations.

 

The researchers found that those with low harm avoidance scores were better able to stay focused on a target image than those with high harm avoidance scores.

 

“People who are more harm avoidant may not be detecting negative stimuli more than other people, but they have a greater difficulty suppressing that information,” Zald suggests.

 

The Brake spokeswoman says companies should think about the consequences of placing emotionally charged billboards at dangerous road junctions: “We should be concerned if drivers are experiencing split-second breaks in concentration, which could result in an accident or death on the roads.”

 

Journal reference: Psychonomic Bulletin and Review (August 2005 issue)

 

So Stop Looking At Porn!

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[OpaQue 15]

YOU MUST QUOTE when you copy stuff from other sources. Credits Fined!

[a3k 0]

that's interesting read but where is the source?

[mzwebfreak 0]

New scientist.com, I think...as for the whole point of the topic, I feel that partially the way that Americans look at things is partially to blame...we get so inundated with sexuality and violence, I think our brains sometimes go "okay, it's nothing important..I don't have to pay attention." and hence the reasons why they have temporary "blindness" afterwards...the brain hasn't figured out that breaktime's over and it's time to go back to work.

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

...while you make a good point I dont know if seeing a car accident would make my brain think "huh, time for a break" lolBut yea it is kind of an interesting idea, since really it makes sense. I know I've seen on tv shows where theyd have the sci-fi scene that shows someone getting speed-taught by tonnes of info showing up on a csreen in succession and your brain does pick out certain frames and thus ignore the few after it. It'd be interesting to see comparison studies between different cultures to see if the way our cultures view each has a huge effect or not. I would assume it would but who knows?

[half1405241509 0]

Well, the Catholic Church is pretty strict on that kind of thing. They are probably trying to scare people into not looking at erotic images, saying they will go blind or worse. Hard to believe, but nevertheless interesting.

[stusrud 0]

That is a very intereting story, I don't believ a word of it, lol! Wel, I do not think it is possible for such a thing to happen, You cannot just go blind by looking at an image, it is impossible, maybe if your mom or dad saw you looking at it, then they hit you really hard, but as human beings, we cannot just go blind by looking at an image.

[organicbmx 0]

How erotic can a billboard be!?!That really sounds like a load of rubbish to me.

[troyilicious82 0]

Hahah...not sure if its true or not, but it sounds funny.

[saneax 0]

LOL ) good work to tun out the porn viewers, but you can hardly shake there ardent desire to go and visit porn, By the way in India, watching Porn is an offense which can keep you behind bars for 7 years, if prooven guilty...) something like this is surely effecting the Indian Porn watchers... which is fast dwindling (I hope!)

[EdgeXC 0]

I don't think it's talking about going blind in the "I can't see" text. I think it's referring to our brain not processing things as quickly after we look at erotic images. It's saying that when we look at erotic images, it stimulates a part of our brain that can slow the other information from our brain down.I think it's very interesting.

[iGuest 3]

no comment

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[iGuest 3]

LOL ) good work to tun out the porn viewers, but you can hardly shake there ardent desire to go and visit porn, By  the way in India, watching Porn is an offense which can keep you behind bars for 7 years, if prooven guilty...

) something like this is surely effecting the Indian Porn watchers... which is fast dwindling (I hope!)

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Haha, wow! I never knew that was a problem in India. I guess its to stop them from having too much babies or something? Or the opposite? Since that should keep them occupied instead of doing it themselves. Well anyways, I never knew it can 'blind' us that badly XD So yeah, stop watching porn!! Stick with the real thing. Or something

[YudzzY 0]

now come on.. how can 'entertainment' be harmful

[EdgeXC 0]

I have been hearing a lot about going blind when you keep on looking at "explict sites". The thing i believe makes people blind is just looking at thier computer, tv, or any video monitor because of the rays that come off of the screens. Its just another thing the government or parents will do to stop the people of the world to stop looking a "explict content." This generation get more sexual exposure than anyother generation in history. It is every commercials that kids see on tv, pop up ads on the internet, and billboards when you are going on a family vacation.