Researchers from the University of Amsterdam, led by Dr. Milica Nikolic, wanted to find out what causes facial flushing and thought the best way to do it was karaoke. They invited dozens of young volunteers to sing a song, after which they watched a video along with the other participants.
They wanted to determine how blushing occurs, the neural activity that underpins what naturalist Charles Darwin called "the most human of all expressions."
Psychologists have two theories when it comes to blushing. One is favored by Darwin, who believed that blushing occurs when we think about how we look to observers. Another believes it's something simpler: a spontaneous response to a sense of exposure.
– Is it just that you are in a social situation where you are exposed and in the spotlight, and you feel the exposure and attention of others, or is it a more complicated issue that we start to think about how we look and how we look to other people – asked Dr. Milica Nikolic, psychologist and lead author of the study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
After inviting young people to participate in the research, which included a "social task" and watching videos, the scientists spoke to more than 60 young people aged 16 to 20.
All but two respondents were men, which led to the decision to focus exclusively on young women.
On the first visit to the lab, each volunteer was asked to perform karaoke while being recorded. The songs were limited to “Let it go” from “Frozen,” “Hello” by Adele, “All I Want For Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey, and “All The Things She Said” by tATu, songs that are difficult to perform and can cause the most embarrassment. A week later, the volunteers returned to the lab.
Scientists inflict karaoke on young volunteers to find out what makes us blush https://t.co/RlM2VFyRtA
- Guardian news (@guardiannews) July 17, 2024
This time, they and others watched their performance while lying in a scanner to record brain activity. They were told that others were watching their performance at the same time, which was designed to heighten their feelings of discomfort.
Predictably, subjects blushed more when observing themselves than others, but analysis of the brain scans revealed that the sudden blushing may not have been caused by what Darwin thought.
The blushing goes hand in hand with greater activity in the cerebellum, which researchers link to emotional arousal and signals in the visual cortex that people are paying attention to their performance. Nothing in the recordings suggested that people were thinking about how others might judge them, the researchers found.
– The redness is simply caused by exposure. In that very brief moment you may not think about how you look and such. I think it's more automatic than the theory suggests – said Nikolic.
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