Long time ago, in 1968, psychologist Robert Zajonc led an experiment to explain the ‘effect of exposition’. He showed to 5 groups of volunteers several papers where unknown Turkish words were written. While the 1st group of volunteers was shown the unknown word just once, the 2nd group was shown it twice, the 3rd group three times and so on and so on…
As a result, people who had seen the word 4 or 5 times were led to think that the unknown word was a major concept, an object, a positive situation or something interesting. On the contrary, the volunteers who saw the world just once or twice didn’t consider it particularly interesting. Zajonc got the same results with Chinese words.
What’s this effect? We all get used to the objects that we often see. We feel at ease whenever we meet familiar objects (at home, in our intimacy). In the same way, we find acceptable (or even enjoyable) new elements that become familiar after a prolonged exposition.
It is a powerful effect, definitely. The media (especially TV, web, cinema) can project symbols, images, names and faces in the intimacy of people by invading their familiar spaces.
I was reading this article by chance on a psychological magazine (Psicologia Contemporanea) today at the library, when I heard about what happened in Connecticut. ‘Once more’ was my first thought. Once more violence. Too many victims. I know it is too simplistic to accuse the media for the overabundance of violence everybody can find in them. I don’t mean that. The murderer’s profile shows that he had an anti-social behaviour and he might have been suffering from a kind of acute autism.
But, still, I cannot prevent myself from wondering how we are getting more and more familiar with all this dark side of the mind.
the art of being Apart 