Cell Phones and Face-Reading: Gladwell, Take 2
A recent study reaffirmed several previous ones, in noting
the danger of driving while talking on a cell phone, and in
showing that "hands-free" makes *no* measurable difference.
Here's a bit of a dialog from a mailing list in which
I participate.
One participant said "I had to dismiss it out
of hand. FOUR times more likely? And handsfreee makes
no difference? That goes against common sense."
Common sense is neither common, nor always sensible.
"... Could be true, but I suspect that they have no
repeatable tests and no hard data."
Yep, this particular study may have been flawed. But do a simple
search for, say, studies "hands-free" cell phones and you'll
uncover at least five previous studies that came to the same
conclusion. (I.e., they have all concluded that hands-free-ness
makes little difference -- talking on a cell phone leads to
crashing more often.)
Could be that all of these studies are flawed, but Occam's razor
suggests that maybe they've uncovered a grain of truth that surprises
our "common" "sense".
As for me, I don't even own a cell phone, so I'm naturally biased
to believe that THEY ARE UTTERLY EVIL AND ARE USED WHILE DRIVING
ONLY BY THE MOST EVIL OF DELIBERATE CAR-CRASHERS.
Ahem.
Speculation: I think that it is somewhat as another
participant suggested ...
"I really do believe that talking on the phone is more
distracting than talking to a real live person next to you,
but not extraordinarily more so."
... but much worse -- I do believe that it is
extraordinarily more distracting, for the reasons outlined below.
"My contention is that the extra effort to visualize the
other person and to get their meaning without the standard
visual clues absorbs some of our power to otherwise attend
the road.
I suggest that it is the fact of having an audio-only
conversation with a person who is not there that is the
main cause of the loss of attention that leads to the increased
wreck rate. And that there is a third, very important
component of a conversation -- the emotional factor -- that
is only dimly seen when your only channel is audio, and
that those of us who work in analytical engineering-type
professions tend to ignore.
I'm sure many of you have read "The Tipping Point" and
"Blink". Think about the chapters that cover "face-reading",
the sections that show evidence (1) that our facial expressions
can sometimes *cause* us to feel the corresponding emotion,
and (2) that we typically mimic the rhythms and moods of
those with whom we converse (face-to-face). So when our
close friend is talking with us and feeling a great sorrow,
our mimicking of their expression causes us to feel a
similar emotion, which we then either simply share, or
translate into a complementary emotion, like compassion
or sympathy.
I don't think Gladwell mentioned it, but there is a
plausible reason for us to have evolved that unexpected
trait: before we had any audible "language as we know it",
this kind of communication allowed groups of humans to
communicate fear or friendship or trust or hatred or
attraction or love and to be able to see whether such
emotions are shared. Even after language was invented,
there remains a wealth of info communicated by a
glance, an upturned eyebrow, a scowl, a grimace, or
the simple wearing of a big round red nose.
My suspicion is that we are evolutionarily hard-wired to
*always* expect to be able to make that kind of deep connection
with our conversational group, and that this is the reason
that the lack of those visual clues is more distracting
than most of us realize.
-- Cell-less in Seattle ... or, uh, Santa Cruz
PS, in case you couldn't tell, the actual facts are that
I just don't like talking on the telephone.
10:23:49 PM
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