The Orienting Reflex
Jacob is wearing his iPod while he walks across
campus. He is listening to a song where a guy is complaining about not being
able to meet women. While Jacob is concentrating on the song, he is also unconsciously
monitoring all the sights and sounds of campus as fellow classmates jam the
sidewalks while they hurry between classes on bicycles, skateboards, and on
foot. Although all this traffic is a potential threat to Jacob’s safety he is
not concentrating on any of it; instead, his brain is processing all the
stimuli unconsciously.
Suddenly Jacob notices Emily on the sidewalk about 50
feet up ahead of him. Emily is a girl in his next class. Jacob desperately
wants to meet Emily, but he is too shy to approach her. He has made it habit to
sit several rows behind her in the large lecture hall so he can glance over at
her and watch her take notes in the cute way she does. He realizes that he
really has a thing for her and wishes there was some way to meet her. He
watches as she arrives at their classroom building. As she is about to enter
the door, she bumps into someone coming out of the building, causing her to
drop the books she is carrying, Jacob sees this as his chance to help her, so
he hurries toward her. But by the time he gets within 10 feet of Emily, another
guy has started to help her. Jacob watches the other guy bend down to pick up
her books and introduce himself to Emily. The guy and Emily walk into the
building as Jacob watches sadly.
When Emily disappears from his sight, Jacob’s
attention returns to the song. He finds himself humming along with the song
about the guy who has such a hard time meeting women.
Analysis
Throughout the story, Jacob is in a stimuli rich
environment with lots of activity. However, he is only paying conscious
attention to the song. Then when he sees Emily, he experiences the first of two
orienting reflexes. First his attention is triggered by Emily and he continues
to concentrate on Emily while he stops paying attention to the song. But when
Emily disappears into the classroom building, Jacob experiences a second
orienting reflex when his attention is triggered back to the song, which has
been playing on his iPod the whole time.
Arousal and Fight/Flight
A week has gone by since Jacob watched Emily drop her
books, and he has had to endure watching the guy who helped her with her books
sit next to her in class. He found out that the guy’s name was Michael. Jacob
hates Michael, whom Jacob regards as his competition for Emily.
Today as Jacob walks to class, he spots Emily up ahead
alone into the classroom building. Jacob hurries to catch up with her so he can
hold the door open for her and introduce himself. Suddenly he feels someone
bump into him, knocking him off stride. Immediately his heart begins to race
and his muscles tense as his body automatically gets him ready to respond to
the threat. He spins around to confront the person who bumped into him and sees
that it is Michael. His hatred boils over and he finds himself shouting, “Hey
dude. Watch where you are going! Learn to walk!” Jacob feels a strong impulse
to lunge forward and push Michael hard to the ground. Then Jacob notices that
Michael is about a foot taller than he is and weighs about 50 pounds more – 50
pounds of hard muscle. Jacob brushes himself off and adds, “And don’t let it
happen again,” as he quickly moves away from Michael as fast as he can.
Analysis
When Jacob was bumped, his brain immediately triggered
a fight/flight response. It released hormones into his bloodstream to make his
heart pound faster and more oxygen to his muscles at a higher rate. At first,
Jacob wanted to fight Michael but then he switched to flight when he quickly
realized that avoiding a fight was the better alternative.
