The research provides valuable insights into how people react under stress.
You may have heard of the popular British TV show ‘Mastermind’. The television quiz series has become known for its challenging questions and the high pace at which participants have to answer questions. And that, as you can probably imagine, causes quite a bit of stress. In a new study researchers have watched several episodes of Mastermind. Because in this way scientists can study how the human body reacts under stressful conditions in situations that would be impossible to imitate in a laboratory.
Mastermind
In Mastermind, four participants are challenged on their general knowledge in a specific field of their choice, such as history, literature, science, and so on. “They sit in an imposing leather chair and have to answer questions quickly while spotlights shine on them and a camera slowly zooms in on their faces,” explains researcher Robert Wilson. The participants are then questioned by a presenter in a tense and challenging atmosphere. The show is known for its high level of difficulty and has become popular due to the intense pressure that contestants experience while answering the questions. The popular TV quiz has had several versions over the years and is one of the longest running quiz shows in the UK.
Real situations
The researchers were particularly interested in how the participants in the nerve-wracking game show reacted physiologically. “This is something I’ve been dreaming about for a long time – trying to get physiological information from video footage,” said Wilson. This allows researchers to investigate situations that are more similar to real situations in everyday life. For example, the thrill of being interrogated on national television is something that cannot easily be recreated in a laboratory.
Blink
Wilson and his team paid particular attention to the number of times the participants blinked. And that is not for nothing. For example, we currently do not know exactly how eye blinking is related to cognitive effort, especially in real situations. However, it is suspected that people blink more the more stressed they are. And the researchers wanted to study that better. “The intense lighting and slow camera movements in Mastermind make it easy to spot blinks,” notes Wilson.
Study
The researchers studied 25 episodes from two seasons of Mastermind and collected data from 100 participants. They noted when each question started and ended, along with when the participants blinked. This yielded almost 100,000 data points. The researchers then analyzed this data to understand how blinking varied in different people throughout the game. They compared these findings with results from less stressful experiments from previous laboratory studies.
Remarkably often
The stress of Mastermind indeed appears to influence the number of times the participants blinked. They blinked almost twice as often as the normal rate of 20 blinks per minute for someone who is relaxed. In addition, the participants appear to blink at ‘semicolon moments’ of the game, namely at the beginning of each question and at the beginning of their answer. They also reduced their blinking as they thought about how to respond, consistent with findings from the lab.
Differences
However, there were also differences with the results of laboratory tests. For example, in the TV show, older adults blinked more than younger adults and women blinked more often than men. “We did not observe these differences in the laboratory,” says Wilson. There were also differences in behavior. In laboratory tests, people usually take their time and react more carefully and precisely after making a mistake. However, this did not happen in Mastermind.
Why?
It is not entirely clear why exactly these differences exist. But according to Wilson, these differences are the most exciting aspect of the research. “One of the big questions in psychology right now is how much of what we observe in the laboratory is actually related to what happens in real life,” he says. “This question is essential, not only for our fundamental understanding of the human mind, but also from a practical perspective, with a view to finding laboratory tests that can help diagnose mental illness.”
For the researchers, studying blinks is just the beginning. “There is so much information hidden in video footage,” says Wilson. For example, modern computer vision techniques can help understand how people look, breathe and wiggle in their seats. This helps researchers measure all kinds of aspects of how our bodies work. “This is exactly what we want to investigate: how the physical and mental aspects of real human behavior work,” Wilson concludes.
2023-11-17 16:01:12
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