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"In one series of experiments cited by Goleman, subjects looked at pictures that juxtaposed neutral images with distressing ones; in some cases, eye-tracking determined that a subject's gaze could go right to the edge of a distressing image and trace its outline without ever straying into it:
Spence, in trying to figure out just how such a trick might be possible, suggests there must be some part of the visual system that takes a "pre-look," glimpses [the distressing stimulus] in peripheral vision, marks it as a psychological danger area, and guides the gaze to the safe areas. The whole operation never reaches awareness.These filtering mechanisms, in extreme circumstances, make it possible for people living under tyrannical regimes not to notice things they're forbidden to acknowledge, or enable people in dysfunctional families not to notice ongoing abuse, etc. But such mechanisms needn't only function defensively, to manage anxiety by screening out intolerably threatening information. In the kind of immersion I describe above, they function to maximize pleasure by screening out whatever threatens the pleasurable experience."
