Karaoke experiment shows what makes us blush
Why do our cheeks turn red when we feel ashamed? To find out, participants in a study had to sing karaoke songs by Adele or Mariah Carey. Which regions of the brain become active when we blush - and why the findings contradict an old Darwinian theory.
When we are embarrassed, our cheeks become warm and red and our hearts seem to stop for a moment. Charles Darwin once described the blush as "the strangest and most human of all expressions." According to his theory, people blush when they think about what others think of them. But is that really the reason?
To find out, a research team led by Milica Nikolić from the University of Amsterdam chose a special experimental setting: karaoke. For the study, the participants - all young women aged between 16 and 20 - had to sing karaoke songs in an initial session. These included particularly challenging songs such as "Hello" by Adele or "All I want for Christmas is you" by Mariah Carey. At another appointment, the test subjects were asked to watch the recording of their singing performance while their brain activity was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The researchers also attached temperature sensors to the women's cheeks to determine the extent of blushing.
The participants were told that an audience would also see these images. The researchers wanted to test whether this might increase the feeling of shame even further. Finally, the women were also shown recordings of other karaoke singers who had sung at a comparable level, as well as professional singers who had pretended to be other participants.
As expected, the women blushed more when they watched their own singing than when they watched strangers singing. More surprising for the researchers, however, were the results of the MRI scans: Blushing was associated with increased activity in parts of the cerebellum and the parietal lobe. The cerebellum is mainly known for controlling movement and coordination. However, according to the study authors, there is growing evidence that it also plays an important role in the processing of emotions. This could indicate that watching one's own performance activates regions of the brain associated with emotional arousal and attention. At the same time, those regions of the brain that are typically involved when we ruminate on our own or others' behaviour were less active. "On this basis, we concluded that thinking about the thoughts of others may not be necessary for blushing," says Nikolić. This would therefore contradict Darwin's theory. "Blushing could be part of the automatic arousal you feel when you are exposed and something relevant to you happens."
Specifically young female participants were selected for the study, as they are usually particularly sensitive to social judgement and their fear of rejection or giving the wrong impression is very pronounced, says Nikolić. In further studies, the research team wants to investigate young children's sense of shame: This is particularly interesting, he says, as at a young age they do not yet have the cognitive abilities to think about what others think of them.
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