Re: Blink rate, startle reflex and psychopathy
dank
> http://cache.search.yahoo-ht2.akadns.net/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=startle+reflex+erotic&fr=fptb-mdp&u=dionysus.psych.wisc.edu/Lit/doc/levenston00a.doc&w=startle+reflex+erotic+erotics&d=NHL_tjWxQxMu&icp=1&.intl=us
>
> The Psychopath as Observer: Emotion and Attention in Picture
> Processing
>
> Levenston,G. K., Patrick, C. J., Bradley, M. M., Lang, P. J., (200).
> The psychopath as observer: Emotion and attention in picture
> processing. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 109(3), 373-385.
>
> Does anyone know the blink rate of psychopaths and non-psychopaths? In
> the famous research by Patrick et all showed that Psychopaths have low
> startle reflex for neutral, erotic and threat pictures. The controls
> had inhibition for erotic and increase for threat. I was thinking that
> maybe the psychopaths had an overall flat emotion. For them all these
> pictures were just ‘neutral’ and hence a startle reflex that is
> ‘inhibited’ because it is related to attentional processing (controls
> had inhibition for erotic pictures for pictures worth attention). What
> is the blink rate for psychopaths and non-psychopaths without viewing
> any pictures? If they are same then these differences in startle
> reflex for psychopaths can be attributed to something else (that is
> paying attention to pictures without getting any emotional rise).
So what you are saying is that you can detect witches (err..."psychopaths")
with a simple blink test. Dr. Phil can stare into someone's eyes and maybe
push some buttons on a magic machine until it beeps whether the subject is
a loyal goodthinker or a thought criminal.
Is there any sort of appeal process for those condemned by their eye blinks?
Can you practice proper blinking or are the criteria you are judged by kept
a secret for security reasons? Is it legal to wear mirrored glasses to
prevent Dr. Phil from seeing your eyes and administering the heretic test,
or is that considered cheating?
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"The scientist of today is either a mixture of psychologist and inquisitor,
studying with extraordinary minuteness of facial expressions, gestures, and
tones of voice, and testing the truth-producing effects of drugs, shock
therapy, hypnosis, and physical torture; or he is a chemist, physicist, or
biologist concerned only with such branches of his special subject as are
relevant to the taking of life."
-- 1984
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dank
important: the alleged ability to determine how a person thinks by the way
he blinks his eyes.
Imagine a society where you don't actually have to commit any sort of crime
to be locked up in a cage, where the government has the power to imprison
you simply because some goddamn mindreading machine suggests that you MIGHT
commit a crime in the future. There is no trial, because you are not really
accused of a crime and the state is not trying to punish you but "treat"
you because it says you are sick because Dr. Phil's fucking machine sez so.
The legal implications of this are enormous and I believe it amounts to a
form of unconstitutional self-incrimination. It's even worse than self-
incrimination, because it forces the subject to bare his very soul to a
goddamn machine and be judged by its criteria. I personally don't believe
the technology works and it is no more scientific than using a dowsing rod
or dunking stool to detect witches, but courts could be persuaded that it
works (or else the judge is subjected to it), and that will be the end of
America's constitutional rights.
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"In Oceania there is no law. Thoughts and actions which, when detected,
mean certain death are not formally forbidden, and the endless purges,
arrests, tortures, imprisonments, and vaporizations are not inflicted as
punishment for crimes which have actually been committed, but are merely
the wiping-out of persons who might perhaps commit a crime at some time
in the future."
-- 1984
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