Okay, I'm lost, could you tell us what the results are in layman's terms?

This experiment is a result of various discussions from the "Innate Fear of Neanderthals" thread. I am trying to understand if people have an innate fear or emotional reaction to certain types of hominid characteristics, and what those might be. Former Northwester had a great quote from the book “Nature via Nurture” by Matt Ridley:



So far the test results seem to show that emotional reaction is increased by hairy, big, and bipedal characteristics, but decreased by tool use. One possible interpretation of this is that people have a strong reaction to "bigfoot" like creatures, and this explains the consistent sightings of a creature like this around the world. Another possible explanation is that members of the BFF have a strong reaction to those pictures anyway, and so one could argue that the test suffers from sample bias. So I wouldn't make too much out of it one way or the other, but at least we are attempting to shed some light on this issue.

5,4,5,3,3,1,2,2,4,4,3,3,2,3,4,9,3,3,8,6,5,7,7,4,4

1,2,3,1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,1,9,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,4,1,1

2,5,5,1,2,1,6,2,1,1,3,1,1,3,2,4,2,6,9,10,4,5,2,2,5

Gah! Maybe that's why I hate tests like this. The test is to determine if there's an emotional response to any of the pictures, then I find out, if I'm not mistaken, it's whether or not the pictures elicit fear as a specific emotional response.

Fear however, is but one of many emotional responses -- anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, curiosity, acceptance, and joy, so someone may give a high value to a picture they find surprising, disgusting, or joyful, and it will instead be recorded as a high value for fear.

I would have preferred a test where the emotional states were clearly defined/stated/indicated, and then have me match an emotion to each picuture.

Not to worry, you'll eventually learn I'm just a huge pain in the butt and I like to :pokey: a lot. :laugh:

RayG

1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,8,1.

I'm not sure why most of those photos should have prompted an "emotional" reaction. Number 24 was the only one, and it prompted a smile.

5,2,3,1,1,1,2,2,6,1,3,1,1,4,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,4,5,1,3

There ya go!

Sorry, this was too weird. I didn't participate. Nice collection of contrived artist conceptions, though. And a couple very envious spears! :eek3dance:

1,1,1,1,2,1,2,1,1,1,1,1,2,2,1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,3,1,

Im I supposed to get a new toe after 15 posts? Find out in a second I guess

No worries Ray, the test is for ANY emotional reponse you might have. If we focus on fear, then the intellectual side kicks in, and people start judging combat readiness based on the image. So just any emotional response will do, like an interest level, etc.

So even though you said...



...and you included:



...you have no idea whether the image produced a fearful emotional response or not, nor are you able to determine what the specific emotional response is. I know you've now said you're looking for ANY emotional response, but you loaded the test with images you thought would produce certain responses, even though they might not.

For example, image #9 might produce a 9 response from me. You might interpret that as a 'fear' response, when in actuality it's either a 'disgust' or 'joy' (laughter) caused by a memory of seeing a naked grandma reaching for her slippers as she steps from the bathtub, as you inadvertently walk in on her. It has nothing to do with whether or not she has or doesn't have a tool, or is hairy.

I guess I just don't see how this test can provide any useful information when the results are based on interpretations instead of specifics.

RayG

The specifics come in from the characteristcs of the pictures, check the regression model for that. I just didn't want to limit reaction (dependent variable) to fear, we are looking for innate emotional responses. But I agree that this is a difficult thing to test...

1,4,2,3,1,2,3,2,1,1,1,1,4,1,1,1,2,2,2,5,4,2,5,6,1

Thanks for doing this, it's interesting. I think in some ways it does make sense to just ask for an "emotional" response level rather than narrowing down the type of emotion. Because the very act of thinking about which emotion it is can cause the results to change, since the emotions come from the mid-brain without conscious thought. If you start to think about it consciously, you have to use your neocortex, and then it could get all confused. Maybe next time you should say people can look at the image for 1 second and record the response.

That Implicit Association Test I mentioned in the Neanderthal thread actually measures the time it takes you to do the association and if it's too long they know you're using your conscious brain and not the emotional quick reaction.

Yes, but who determines whether an emotional response is positive or negative? Joyful or fearful? To lump all high scores as negative/fearful, when that's merely interpreting the response, seems erroneous to me.

It seems similar to the controversy with using Rorschach inkblots in that the person conducting the test is projecting their own interpretation on the test results.

RayG

First off, let me say I'm not a psychologist but am more interested in how the brain works.

There's some good detail on this in the book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Here's the author's own page on his book Malcom Gladwell: Blink

This book is where I learned of the Harvard study I linked in my last post. The clever thing the Harvard Implicit study does is to measure the time it takes for you to respond to both positive and negative images compared to words superimposed on those images. So that's the main way it differs from the Rorschach inkblots. It measures the response from the lower part of the brain, and not the neocortex or thinking part. It's the time (in milliseconds) it takes to respond to differentiate between conscious and subconscious thought. That's the difference. The whole point of it is differentiating between emotional and conscious reaction, without regard to what the particular emotion was. This is because the two reactions originate from different parts of the brain, and this is why the description of the emotion is unimportant.

Try the Implicit Association Test

I think it would be interesting to do the same thing with images of hairy beasts.

Great images!

I'd have to agree with Ray on this, this questionaire gives the results about an emotional response, though it doens't specify what emotion, including fear. In fact, there's a good chance the emotonal response would be interest or fascination, as it was for me, though also recognition of the images, their creators, and the background behind them.

There are a few from Burian and one from Matternes, Frazetta, is that Brandon Choi's gorilla or is that from Tarzan? I'm thinking Tarzan, plus the great 3 dimensonal recreations. Matternes is amazing, he dissected numerous apes and humans, made castings of the diferent muscle layers, and studied how they attached to their anchor points on the bones. He then was able to identify those landmarks on the fossls of the hominds and build their muscle structure from there. Very intensive and thorough recreations.

Anyways, based on my own fascinaton with hominids and apes, I would've given all these images a 9 or 10, but as far as fear, that would be 0. If a qualifier was used at the beginning about what kin of emotion to scale, then I would've participated.

But since it didn't, the results here only show emotion, not specified, could even be love.

3,3,5,2,2,1,4,2,3,2,3,1,4,3,1,2,1,1,2,4,2,2,2,4,3

Here are mine.....

2,1,9,1,1,1,3,2,3,1,1,2,2,2,2,4,2,2,2,4,3,4,6,1,2

....I had no physical or emotional response to any of them ....#1 across the board....

4,4,5,6,5,5,5,5,4,4,3,4,5,3,4,5,6,5,5,5,4,4,3,4,2

I'm still not sure what "emotional reaction" this is supposed to measure. These are just sort-of arbitrary responses - I had no very strong reactions - neat pictures, though.

A good way to this might be to have a survey set up with a single image per page and the numbers on a pull-down menu. That way the participant can focus on just one image at a time. Probably no way to do this on BFF - I dunno...just thinking out loud.

I gotta say I'm on board with Ray and Wolftrax here. Why intepret my emotional reaction to seeing "Adam" from the Sistine Chapel - one of the greatest artistic masterpieces in human history - on the same scale as the other images? My reaction might be a 10 because of the artistry of the image, my desire to tour The Vatican, my admiration for the brilliance of Michelangelo, etc., none of which have anything to do with fear.

I'd be more "afraid" of a picture of Mickey Mouse, a clown, or Ann Coulter than any of the images posted.

A photo of Al Gore mixed in with the rest would have skewed my results for sure

Here you go:

4 2 2 5 2 2 5 3 3 2 2 2 6 3 4 5 4 2 2 4 2 2 3 5 2

My reaction was simply whether or not I found the image interesting as a photograph or a drawing, certainly nothing visceral or fearful.

Thanks cryptidon,

By the way, has anyone ever mentioned an intense reaction to your Avatar image? Now THAT is what I call disturbing....

Once or twice :laugh:

1,1,3,1,1,2,2,1,2,1,1,3,1,5,1,4,1,3,2,4,1,1,1,2,1

5,6,7,2,5,5,6,2,6,4,5,5,10,5,7,2,5,7,10,6,6,8,8,9

1,1,2,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,,1,1,1,1,1,1,2,1,1,1,1,1

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Hi,

The test is a good beginning, but I don´t think the outcome is in anyway useable. Points to consider.

-The people here are to much into the topic.
-The testet people here, do sometimes already know some of the pictures.
-The "camera" angles influence the perception of the sice, and the fear factor itself.
-Photo vs. Painting/CGI
-group vs. single
-known (apes) vs. unknown
-artistic vs. sientific paintings/CGI
-looking at the camera/artist vs. looking somewhere
-stature
-background
-expression
-no scale

But regarding the fear factor, I would suggest the follwing. Hair and sice are most important, followed by biped, tools must be more specific to determin the influence. A Stick to attac is different to a stick to get insects.

What´s interessting thinking about is why, if we fear neanderthal man, we don´t fear pavian and chimp. Pavian groups kill frequently in india. Chimps are smal but can rip you in peaces. Maybe the media?

Hi again,

I thought a little bit about the question, and have a theory.

Could it be that BF cross our brains barrier, and make us judge him in human instances. And could it further be that human judge the phenotype thru the genotype? This would describe why some people are afraid of different coloured people, of handicapt, of punks, etc. If human would do that BF would look like the insanest stranger on earth. This combined with his power and speed, makes him the mega threat in a area where you can´t call in the police, or any other support.

In early reports BF is sometimes called devil, that could be a little clue in my approaches direction. He is in nearly every way superiour, but makes a realy sic impression compared to a human. The opposite would be a young naked woman that you encounter in the woods she smiles at you and procedes her way. Who would run away?! We also have a name, it would be a fairy!

All in all my theory is that, people project the outer look to the character, and this in front of the background that they think he is human.

What do you think?

I'm going to finish up this experiment with all the data posted. Let's come back to conclusions at that point.

I know that you can't explain in greater depth yet, but I am wondering if I participate if my answers would give you wrong data. I may have a strong reaction to alot of the pictures (i.e. disgust) but it may be lumped in with the whole group and reported as "people responded with strong reactions of agreement for this study" etc... because "strong reaction" is not defined. I'm not saying you would deliberately misconstrue response meanings and I know I'm doing a bad job of explaining myself, I just don't want to be included in a result publishing if the intent is a "strong reaction of agreement or acceptance of the picture's intended use" since I don't feel that way.

I am not exactly clear what "emotional reaction" really means... so I will assume it means most human-like and therefore how much empathy I feel for it.

4 4 6 2 7 4 2 2 6 5 5 6 3 6 7 6 1 3 4 6 2 4 5 2 1

1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1

Sorry, I didn't have much of a reaction to the photos. My mind might be insulated to these types of images.

6 2 6 4 1 2 3 3 5 2 4 5 5 7 3 5 3 1 2 5 3 3 3 2 6


I think higher numbers kind of correspond to the picture being both realistic and close-to-human but not quite.

1,1,1,1,4,3,1,1,1,5,1,2,1,1,5,7,1,1,1,9,1,1,1,1,1

Really didn't feel anything for the "monkeys", the hairless hominids did seem to prompt some kind of faint aggression/competition kind of response, emphasised if armed or facing towards me. The more recent unarmed hominids seem to provoke less response.

1=8
2=5
3=7
4=1
5=2
6=1
7=5
8=3
9=7
10=4
11=8
12=1
13=3
14=5
15=2
16=3
17=1
18=3
19=8
20=2
21=2
22=4
23=7
24=2
25=3

Most of the primitive human (neanderthal, cro-magnon) representations were horrible and looked like they were out of a bad movie, and I disagree with the giganolopithecus representation (obviously) being a proponent and agree with Krantz that the skull reconstruction indicates bipedal development.

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Not gonna lie...9 and 14 reall freaked me out

4,3,7,1,1,1,3,3,2,1,2,1,3,1,1,2,1,4,6,6,5,4,3,1,1