Changing physician behavior: what does it take?
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Attitude of Health Personnel↗
Biomedical subjects
D Shearn
Publications and source records attributed to D Shearn.
Blushing as a function of audience size.
Almost no experimental analysis of blushing has been done since Darwin's observations in 1872. Forty-eight college women watched a videotape intended to elicit blushing, and a videotape not intended to elicit blushing, but elicit physiological responses. A subject was alone, or with one or four persons present. Blushing, which was measured directly with a photoplethysmograph probe on the cheek, was greater during the blushing than nonblushing stimulation. Blushing increased as audience size increased from one to four, but not from zero to one. Audience size and kind of stimulation interacted statistically. Similar results were obtained with ear coloration, cheek temperature, and skin conductance responses, although confidence levels were lower. Cheek coloration and temperature were significantly correlated during nonblushing stimulation, and the zero and one audience conditions, but not during the four audience condition, when blushing was greatest. These results may be placed within the context of emotional effects of audience size generally, including stuttering and speech disturbance, disruption of learning, and self-reported tension.
Adult↗
Facial coloration and temperature responses in blushing.
Little work on the psychophysiology of blushing has been done since Darwin's 1872 observations. Facial vascular and temperature changes have been largely ignored in psychophysiology. We had 16 female and 16 male undergraduate volunteers watch a videotape intended to produce blushing (the individual's singing recorded the previous day), and a videotape not intended to produce blushing, but elicit physiological responses for comparison (a segment from Hitchcock's movie Psycho). Four people were present as a subject watched these video segments. Cheek and ear coloration, measured photoplethysmographically, cheek temperature, and finger skin conductance responses were significantly greater during stimulation intended to elicit blushing than during comparison stimulation. Gender interacted statistically with kind of stimulation only in cheek temperature. Only video segments of the subject's face that coincided with maximal cheek coloration during stimulation intended to produce blushing were judged reliably as blushing, and then more often in females than in males.
Adolescent↗