So the eyes made it less likely to forget the payment, but not because of guilt or fear, and a blinking light next to the notice would have the same effect?
It's possible, but your first statement is also correct. Like the brains of other social animals, the human brain has a lot of built in circuitry to process facial expressions. Understanding the state of mind and being able to guess at the future actions of other people by reading their facial expressions has given us a major evolutionary advantage. A lot of that circuitry works below the threshold of conscious thought. There's a ton of research on this: Take a look here: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=fmri+fac ial+recognition
In our research http://visibleemployee.org/ we've found that the same principles shown in the Newcastle study also work for employees in the workplace. Workplace monitoring systems do actually "catch" people doing bad things sometimes, but the greatest effect is the deterrent that comes from knowing you are being watched. I agree that there are important privacy issues at stake, but organizations (think VA data leak) also have a responsibility to make sure that their employees are doing the right stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
It's possible, but your first statement is also correct. Like the brains of other social animals, the human brain has a lot of built in circuitry to process facial expressions. Understanding the state of mind and being able to guess at the future actions of other people by reading their facial expressions has given us a major evolutionary advantage. A lot of that circuitry works below the threshold of conscious thought. There's a ton of research on this: Take a look here: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=fmri+fac ial+recognition
In our research http://visibleemployee.org/ we've found that the same principles shown in the Newcastle study also work for employees in the workplace. Workplace monitoring systems do actually "catch" people doing bad things sometimes, but the greatest effect is the deterrent that comes from knowing you are being watched. I agree that there are important privacy issues at stake, but organizations (think VA data leak) also have a responsibility to make sure that their employees are doing the right stuff.