Thaindian News

Washington, May 23 (IANS) Gossip not only changes what humans know about one another, it literally affects how they see one another.

“Usually we assume that what you see influences what you feel. Here’s a case where what you feel about someone influences what you see visually,” says Lisa Feldman Barrett, who conducted the study along with her team at Northeastern University.

Participants in two experiments first saw neutral faces paired with negative gossip, positive gossip, or neutral gossip, so that they learned which faces were bad, good or neutral, reports the journal Science.

When faces were then paired with another unrelated image, such as a house, and presented to the participant, the face associated with the negative gossip was more likely to be seen consciously, compared to faces previously paired with positive or neutral gossip, or completely novel faces.

The research shows that gossip doesn’t just change your opinion of another person, it also changes the way you see a person, visually, according to a Northeastern University statement.

The findings are surprising because they show that you don’t come to know the world through only your external senses - your feelings also influence how you visually see the world.