Elephants on Acid

by Alex Boese

  Zajonc kept his roach-runners alone in a dark jar for a week before the big day, feeding them sliced apples, priming them for peak performance. On the day of the event, he placed a single roach in the starting box of the apparatus, turned on a 150-watt floodlight behind the box, and opened a gate, allowing the roach access to the tube. Away the roach would go, fleeing from the bright light toward the comforting darkness of the box at the other end.

  Zajonc wasn’t doing this for sport. At least, if he was, he didn’t admit it. He was attempting to determine whether the athletic performance of a cockroach would improve in front of an audience of its peers—which is why he tested how fast the roaches ran both with an audience and without one.

  What he found was that roaches definitely ran faster in the presence of other roaches. This fact alone might have merited his study a brief mention in a reference guide to cockroach behavior, but Zajonc argued his discovery had wider significance.

  The phenomenon at work, he suggested, was “social facilitation.” The mere presence of other cockroaches somehow gave his runners an extra boost of energy. And if this is true for cockroaches, then it might, he theorized, be true for humans. As Zajonc put it, “The presence of others is a source of nonspecific arousal. It can energize all responses likely to be emitted in the given situation.” Translation: You’ll probably run faster in front of a crowd than without one.

  Why would this be? Zajonc chalked it up to an automatic, physiological reflex. A creature that is alone can relax, but if members of its species are around, it needs to be more alert, in case it needs to respond to something they do. This extra alertness can enhance performance on a task such as running in a straight line. But there’s a catch. The enhancement effect only works for simple tasks. The performance of complex tasks—ones that require some concentration—suffers in the presence of others. The extra energy creates sensory overload, making it harder to sort through thoughts.

  Zajonc demonstrated this by adding a twist to his experiment. He made the roaches navigate a simple maze before they could reach the safety of the dark box. Sure enough, the roaches performed slower when challenged with figuring out the maze as their companions watched. To imagine how this observation might apply to humans, think of a task that requires some thought—solving mathematical problems, perhaps. Zajonc would predict that the effect of feeling self-conscious would inhibit performance of such a task in front of an audience.

  Since Zajonc’s experiment, the phenomenon has been tested in numerous species, including chickens, gerbils, centipedes, goldfish, and, of course, humans. The mere presence of others does, almost invariably, increase the speed of simple tasks and decrease the speed of complex tasks. In one test to confirm this, researchers used a telephoto lens to spy on joggers, attempting to discover whether they ran faster as they passed observers sitting by the side of the road. They did. The social-facilitation effect even appears to extend to mannequins. Subjects in a study at the University of Wisconsin performed a simple task faster when sitting in a room with a mannequin than when sitting in the room alone. Just about the only thing that hasn’t been studied is whether the mere presence of a cockroach has a facilitating effect upon human performance. Judging by how fast some people run when they see the little creatures pop up in the kitchen, antennae waving, it probably does.

  Zajonc, R. B., A. Heingartner, & E. M. Herman (1969). “Social Enhancement and Impairment of Performance in the Cockroach.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 13 (2): 83–92.

  Eyeing an Ungulate

  Their eyes lock in a stare. It is a battle of wills. Who will look away first? The man focuses all his mental energy on his opponent. His eyes are like twin laser beams, intense and unwavering. His opponent stares back, her eyes black and impassive. For five long seconds they hold each other’s gaze, until abruptly the sheep looks away. She bleats once and urinates on the ground.

  Have you ever caught a stranger staring at you? Did it make you feel nervous, uncomfortable, or afraid? Now imagine you were a sheep. How do you think you would feel if a human was staring at you and wouldn’t stop? That was what researchers at New Zealand’s Massey University wondered.

  To find out the answer, one of them stood inside a wooden-floored arena and stared at a sheep for ten minutes. He followed the animal’s every movement with his eyes. The study’s design protocol specified that “if the test sheep made eye contact, it was maintained until the sheep looked away.” Thankfully for the pride of all involved, no instances were recorded in which the sheep stared down the human.

  Throughout November 2001, a total of twenty sheep were subjected to the staring test. Next, the researchers repeated the experiment, substituting, in place of the staring man, either a cardboard box or a guy who gazed at the floor. Hidden observers recorded the behavior of the sheep in each situation. They looked, in particular, for signs of fear, such as freezing in place, attempting to escape, or glancing repeatedly at the stimulus.

  The final data offered both expected and unexpected results. As expected, “individual sheep showed more fear- or aversion-related behavior in the presence of a human than with a cardboard box.”

  But, unexpectedly, the sheep displayed less fear toward the staring man than they did toward the eyes-downcast man. The sheep kept their distance from the guy staring at the floor, as if to say, “You won’t look at me, so I don’t trust you.” However, they did urinate more often when directly stared at. The reason for that was unknown.

  The Massey University study might seem a little eccentric, but there’s actually a wealth of research involving the reactions of animals to staring humans. Animals that researchers have spent time staring at include iguanas, snakes, gulls, sparrows, and chickens. Such studies are part of a larger effort to understand predator-prey relationships—specifically, how prey animals react to visual cues from predators.

  Researchers have also tested the reactions of humans to being stared at, although these studies get published in social-psychology journals rather than animal-behavior ones. In a widely cited 1972 experiment, Stanford University researchers pulled up to a red light on a motor scooter and fixedly stared at the driver of the car next to them. About four feet typically separated the experimenter and subject. Most of the people who were stared at exhibited a similar response. They would notice the staring scooter operater almost right away and then:

  Within a second or two, they would avert their own gaze and begin to indulge in a variety of apparently nervous behaviors, such as fumbling with their clothing or radio, revving up the engines of their cars, glancing frequently at the traffic light, or initiating animated conversation with their passengers. If there was a long time interval before the light changed, the subjects tended to glance furtively back at the experimenter, averting their gaze as soon as their eyes met his.

  The experimenters stared until the light turned green, and then timed how quickly the drivers crossed the intersection. The drivers typically jammed down on the gas and flew through the lights. The researchers concluded that we humans interpret staring as a threat display and respond with avoidance behavior, such as speeding away from staring weirdos on motor scooters, to remove ourselves from danger.

  Comparing the sheep and human studies, you might conclude that sheep are braver than humans. After all, the sheep didn’t try to flee the presence of the staring human. However, it probably has nothing to do with bravery. A more likely interpretation is that sheep are so used to humans acting strange that they don’t really care what we do anymore. And we humans can take comfort in the knowledge that at least we don’t urinate when stared at. Or do we? The Stanford researchers had no way to observe whether that particular response occurred in any of their subjects. So if you ever decide to stare at another driver at an intersection and they suddenly get a sheepish grin on their face, you now might wonder why.

  Beausoleil, N. J., K. J. Stafford, & D. J. Mellor (2006). “Does Direct Human Eye Contact Function as a Warning Cue for Domestic Sheep
(Ovis aries)?” Journal of Comparative Psychology 120 (3): 269–79.

  Lassie, Get Help!

  Timmy has fallen down a well. “Lassie, get help!” he calls up from the darkness. Lassie pricks up her ears, looks down the well, and then takes off running. Soon she finds a ranger.

  “Bark! Bark! Bark!”

  “What is it, Lassie?” he says. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “Bark! Bark!” Lassie motions with her snout, then begins running back toward the well. Concerned, the ranger follows closely behind.

  If you were trapped down a well like Timmy, what would your dog do? Would it run to get help, or would it wander off to sniff a tree? If you own a trained rescue dog it would probably get help, but what about an average dog, the kind whose greatest passions in life are (a) bacon, and (b) barking at the neighbor’s cat? Would it figure out what to do in an emergency situation?

  To find out, researchers Krista Macpherson and William Roberts from the University of Western Ontario arranged for twelve dog owners to pretend to have a heart attack while walking their dogs through an open field. The owners all performed the exact same actions. When they reached a pre-designated point in the field, marked by a target painted on the ground, they began breathing heavily, coughed, gasped, clutched their arm, fell over, and then lay motionless on the ground. A video camera hidden in a tree recorded what their dogs did next. In particular, the researchers were curious to see whether the dogs would seek help from a stranger sitting ten meters away.

  The dogs—from a variety of breeds, including collies, German shepherds, rottweilers, and poodles—didn’t do much to promote the theory of canine intelligence. They spent some time nuzzling and pawing their owners before taking the opportunity to roam around aimlessly. Only one dog—a toy poodle—directly made contact with the stranger. It ran over and jumped in the person’s lap—not because it was trying to signal that its owner was in distress, but because it wanted to be petted. It probably figured, Uh-oh! My owner’s dead. I need someone to adopt me!

  Concerned that the heart-attack scenario may have been too subtle for the dogs—perhaps they thought their owners were just taking a nap—and that the presence of the passive stranger might have suggested to the dogs that nothing was wrong, the researchers designed a second, more dramatic test.

  They arranged for each of fifteen dog owners to bring their dogs into an obedience school, greet a person in the front lobby, and then walk into a second room, where a bookcase then fell on the person. (Or, at least, the bookcase appeared to fall on the person. In reality, the researchers had shown each dog owner how to pull the piece of furniture down in such a way that it would only look like an accident without actually hurting the person.) Pinned beneath the shelves, each owner let go of his or her dog’s leash and began imploring the animal to get help from the person in the lobby.

  Once again, the canine response to the emergency was somewhat lacking. The dogs spent a good deal of time standing by their owners, wagging their tails, but not a single one went to get help. The researchers concluded that “the fact that no dog solicited help from a bystander—neither when its owner had a ‘heart attack’ nor when its owner was toppled by a bookcase and called for help—suggests that dogs did not recognize these situations as emergencies and/or did not understand the need to obtain help from a bystander.” In other words, don’t expect Fido to save your life.

  The researchers were quick to point out that in some cases, dogs clearly have saved their owners’ lives by seeking help. The media loves to report these stories, since they provide feel-good tales to end news broadcasts with—“Stay tuned for the dog that dialed 911!” But the researchers argue that such stories should not be considered indicative of typical dog behavior. So much for the urban legend of the life-saving pooch.

  And while we’re on the subject of urban legends, here’s another one. “Timmy fell down a well” is perhaps the most quoted line from the Lassie TV show. So much so that Jon Provost, the actor who played Timmy, titled his autobiography Timmy’s in the Well. However, although Timmy endured many calamities during the show—including falling into a lake, getting caught in quicksand, and being struck by a hit-and-run driver—he never once fell down a well.

  Macpherson, K., & W. A. Roberts (2006). “Do Dogs (Canis familiaris) Seek Help in an Emergency?” Journal of Comparative Psychology 120 (2): 113–19.

  Horny Turkeys and Hypersexual Cats

  Male turkeys aren’t fussy. They’ll try to mate with almost anything, including a head on a stick.

  During the late 1950s Martin Schein and Edgar Hale, animal researchers at Pennsylvania State University, observed that when they placed male turkeys in a room with a lifelike model of a female turkey, the birds responded sexually to the model in a manner “indistinguishable from their reaction to receptive females.” The turkeys let out an amorous gobble announcing their intentions, began waltzing around and puffing up their feathers, and finally mounted the model and initiated a copulatory sequence.

  Intrigued, Schein and Hale wondered what the minimal stimulus was that would elicit a sexual response from a male turkey. Specifically, how many of the model’s body parts could they remove before the turkey would lose interest? As it turned out, they were able to remove quite a few.

  Tail, feet, and wings—they all proved unnecessary. Finally the researchers gave the turkeys a choice between a headless body and a head-on-a-stick. To their surprise, the turkeys invariably chose the head-on-a-stick over the body. Apparently this was all it took to get a turkey going. The researchers wrote:

  A bodyless head supported 12 to 15 inches above floor level elicited courtship display, approach, and mounting movements properly oriented behind the head . . . The male’s subsequent response to the model head included treading movements, tail lowering, and movements directed towards achieving cloacal contact. At this point ejaculation could be evoked by applying mild tactile stimulation to the exposed penile papillae of the male. Effective stimuli included a warm watchglass, a human hand, or any warm smooth surface.

  The male’s fixation on the female head appeared to stem from the mechanics of turkey mating. When a male turkey mounts a female, he is so much larger than her that he covers her completely, except for her raised head. Therefore, it is her head alone that serves as his erotic focus of attention.

  Having isolated the head as the ultimate turkey turn-on, Schein and Hale next investigated how minimal they could make the head before it failed to elicit a response. They tested turkeys with a variety of heads-on-a-stick—a fresh female head; a fresh male head; a two-year-old female head that was “discolored, withered, and hard”; a similarly dried-out male head; and a series of balsa-wood heads that varied with respect to the presence of eyes and beaks.

  The fresh female head was the clear winner, followed by the dried-out male head, the fresh male head, and the old female head. All the wooden heads came in a distant last place—indicating, perhaps, that turkeys prefer women with brains. But it should be noted that even though the wooden heads were not a preferred object of passion, they nevertheless did elicit sexual behavior.

  Curious about the mating habits of other poultry, Schein and Hale performed similar tests on white leghorn cocks. They discovered that these birds, unlike turkeys, required a combination of head and body for adequate sexual stimulation. They detailed this research in a paper with the evocative title, “Effects of Morphological Variations of Chicken Models on Sexual Responses of Cocks.”

  Poultry are not the only birds easily misled in matters of romance. Konrad Lorenz once observed a shell parakeet who grew amorous with a small celluloid ball. And many other animals exhibit mating behavior toward what researchers refer to as “biologically inappropriate objects.” Bulls will treat almost any restrained animal as a receptive cow. Their general rule in life seems to be, in the words of Schein and Hale, “If it doesn’t move away and can be mounted, mount it!”

  During the early 1950s researchers at Walter Reed Ar
my Medical Center surgically damaged the amygdala (a region of the brain) in a number of male cats. These cats became hypersexual, attempting to mate with a dog, a female rhesus monkey, and an old hen. Four of these hypersexual cats, placed together, promptly mounted one another.

  At the summit of this beastial pyramid of the perverse stands Homo sapiens. We, as a species, are in no position to laugh at the mating habits of turkeys, bulls, or any other creature, since there are no apparent limits to what can serve as an erotic stimulus for a human being.

  Case in point—Thomas Granger, a teenage boy who in 1642 became one of the first people to be executed in Puritan New England. His crime was having sex with a turkey (as well as a few other animals). Granger confessed to the deed, but defended himself by arguing that sex with animals was a custom “long used in old England.” Ah yes, Merrie Olde England! For some reason, this story—though entirely true—seldom makes its way into history books. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting piece of trivia to weave into the conversation during Christmas dinner.

  Schein, M. W., & E. B. Hale (1965). “Stimuli eliciting sexual behavior.” In Sex and Behavior (F. A. Beach, ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons.

  The Brain Surgeon and the Bull

  The matador stands in the bullring, the hot Spanish sun beating down on his head. Thirty feet away stands a bull. A hushed crowd watches in the stands. The matador flourishes his red cape. The bull stamps one hoof, snorts, and then charges. At the last moment, the matador lifts the cloth and gracefully steps to the side, but the bull unexpectedly swings its head and knocks the matador to the ground. The crowd gasps. People start screaming as the bull circles around and charges again, bearing down on the matador, who lies clutching his stomach. It seems like a bad situation for the matador. The bull is only yards away. In a few seconds it will all be over. But suddenly the matador reaches to his side and presses a button on his belt. Instantly a chip inside the bull’s brain emits a small burst of electricity, and the bull skids to a halt. It huffs and puffs a few times, then passively walks away.