Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle

Physicists hate it when Anthropologists misuse Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle to give added weight to the commonplace observation that the ethnographic observer has an impact on the subjects and activities being observed. Not only is it unnecessary to evoke physics, it is bad physics:

Another common misconception is that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is equivalent to the statement, “You can’t measure a system without changing it.” In fact, it applies to unmeasured states and does not really take account of the effect of measurement.

Nonetheless, it has become anthropological shorthand to refer to our academic concerns that we (the observer) might be unduly influencing what we observe. The same concern affects documentary filmmakers, as it is not uncommon for the presence of the camera to have a strong influence on the events being recorded.

This fact struck home yesterday as we were interviewing a key subject. His kids came tearing across the frame: an older sister chasing her younger brother. As she ran, the sister yelled: “They should film our fight!” As shooting anything else had become impossible, we complied.

PS: I’m happy to say that DER has made our short film (which the current project is building upon), Acting Like a Thief, freely available from Google Video in its entirety. If your university library doesn’t yet have a copy of the film, please request that they purchase one. Doing so will help us demonstrate the wisdom of such an Open Access model, as well as supporting our current production!

19 thoughts on “Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle

  1. I think the principle of non interference in making a movie documentary is a naive view of creating information.

    The primary weakness has to do with how information is used in a movie. If I see the movie once do I use/see it again? Can we link that information exchange to how I use information? So that I go back to the subject show them the movie and the subject makes a movie which shows my influence?

    The movie as it were has no framework to judge one way or the other how it influences creating information in the subject. A framework being that which can be judged to be altered.
    Doyle

  2. I actually brought this question up today in a class I’m taking. When conducting fieldwork with XYZ tribe in whereever, is what an anthropologist observes really the way they live their lives, or are his informants simply “putting on a show,” more or less, to live up to the anthropologist’s expectations? I think it’s a valid question.

  3. Well there are various degrees of dissimulation. But I think that Briggs’s point in the book _Learning How To Ask_ is relevant here — the act of eliciting information is in itself part of the on going dance of social life that we call ‘culture’ so the idea of an ‘unbiased’ interview involves a fundamental understanding of how meaning is made and transmitted. So the way out is the way in — managing the transference, as it were.

  4. A quick search for “Heisenberg uncertainty anthropology” brings up over 55,000 hits on Google. My point was more about how we talk about this phenomenon (and to share a cute story) than any desire to rehash old arguments.

    Perhaps the observation isn’t as “commonplace” as I had assumed?

  5. Both Daniel’s question and Rex’s reply assume a “tribe,” which sounds to me like a relatively small and relatively knowable group. Those of us who work with large populations self-identified as culturally distinct (in my case as Chinese or Japanese) have several layers of dissimulation/concern for cultural or personal image to contend with. Scholars of Japan are familiar with a huge and constantly growing literature labeled Nihonjinron (Discourses on Japaneseness) that tends to be resorted to whenever Japanese encounter non-Japanese. If this is what you learn about Japan, you go away with a highly idealized and self-exoticized view of what life in Japan is about. As you start to learn more and dig deeper, you then discover that this is only the first layer. One of the first bits of Nihonjinron you are likely to pick up is the distinction between tatemae (what it’s polite to say or do in public) and honne (how people really feel). Where this boundary is drawn affects how much Japanese individuals reveal to each other. Where it is drawn and how seriously it is taken varies with situation as well as individual. Afterwork drinking parties are one occasion famous as an opportunity to reveal honne without fear of ridicule or reprisal; drunkenness is a useful excuse. There is also evidence of generational change in how private people prefer to be. In my book on Japanese consumer behavior I cite one informant, a now-retired advertising agency executive and member of the “burning generation” who rebuilt Japan after WWII, who told me that young Japanese are too polite, too unwilling to intrude on each other. In contrast, he said, in his generation, “We were so eager to know what the other guy was thinking that we tampled into each other’s hearts with our shoes on.” (Those who know the Japanese custom of removing your shoes before entering someone’s home will catch the force of this metaphor.)

  6. How does my answer assume a ‘tribe’? It is actually about problematizing such notions of externally bounded, internally homogeneous Cultures.

  7. Sloppy reading on my part. I took Rex’s “so the way out is the way in” to be referring to Daniel’s “tribe XYZ.”

    But, let me ask another question. At what point does “problematizing” become more than a mystification of the more straightforward “there’s something wrong here, but I don’t have a clue how to get it right”?

  8. Let’s examine a famous documentary maker; Fred Wiseman (from Wikipedia profile) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Wiseman

    “While Wiseman certainly has a strong interest in social issues, he is not an exposé film maker; he does not build his films around exposing a specific injustice. The only exception is his first film, Titicut Follies. Here he did seek to effect change on the situation, but the experience left him disillusioned with the “naïve and pretentious view that there was some kind of one-to-one connection between a film and social change.” (Poppy) Since then he has hoped to effect change at a more abstract level, by illustrating to his audience the everyday interactions between people and institutions.”

    Doyle;
    There are some technical issues of making a movie that are not common knowledge. What do we see when we see motion? The motion seeing channel of vision doesn’t carry color information.

    Let me elaborate. Culture has been ascribed to Chimpanzees, Bonobos, and Orangutans. They transmit culture via example, not language.

    The chief question about ‘connection’ in movies is as Wiseman believes is now much does direct affect happen when making a documentary?

    We can assume that human connection is strongly in a cultural sense ‘language’ connection. In many ways for example silent movies are more universal than is language. But this neglects the question then of what is the language connection movies make.
    thanks,
    Doyle

  9. Don’t worry about it John. Some day when you are as old and wise as I am you won’t make these sorts of youthful errors anymore 😛

  10. To me, the interesting part of Kerim’s vignette is not the threadbare general point about the HUP, but the observation about the specific impact of the recording technology on the interaction. Anecdotes like this one support views like those expressed (though not necessarily held) by Daniel, which in their most extreme form assume that people being recorded are always actively conscious of being recorded, and are constantly performing for the recording technology and its real or imagined audiences. I think that as recording technology becomes an increasingly common part of fieldwork, assessing the accuracy of this view becomes increasingly important. So, if Kerim invokes the HUP, I’d like to voice a contrarian view, call it Newton’s 1st Law of Recording Technology, in keeping with the physics theme

    I have been involved in two different ethnographic and linguistic projects in which we have audio-recorded thousands of hours of conversations among the same small groups of people over several years. In that time I have seen and heard ample evidence that, over time, people can get very accustomed to the presence of recorders, to the point that the fact that they are being recorded frequently slips from their conscious awareness. This is most evident when I review the recordings with the person and they react, laughing, or with dismay: `I said that?!’, and ask me to erase the recording or restrict who listens to it.

    And this even happens a lot to me, the person who is busy positioning the microphone and checking the recording and battery levels! Later in the day I may be laying in bed, thinking about the day, and then realize that I said something on a recording that I would not have said had I remembered the recorder was on. Or I may review a recording in which I was chatting with someone, and in which we both headed off to do something together, having forgotten about the recorder and leaving it to record an hour or two of jungle bird calls.

    In fact, the fact that people can get so accustomed to the presence of recorders, raises for me a host of ethical issues. Even if one asks for explicit permission to record, does the recording become in effect, if not in intent, surreptitious, if the person being recorded forgets that they are being recorded? I have dealt with this issue by explicitly inviting people to review recordings, and to tell them that they can erase any recording they want me to. And a few times people *have* erased recordings once they realized what was on the recording. Or in one interesting case, I was asked to record a sequel in which several interactants re-contextualized the original recording.

    Clearly, even when people have become very accustomed to recorders, they do not *always* forget about them. And we haven’t had the same kind of experience with video recorders, which instead frequently bring out the most over-the-top camera-aware performances. But this may simply be because we don’t do a lot of video recording.

    So, although the anthro version of the HUP has very real effects on recorded interactions, I think it is important to remember that that there are also strong forces working in the opposite direction.

  11. Imichael writes;
    So, although the anthro version of the HUP has very real effects on recorded interactions, I think it is important to remember that that there are also strong forces working in the opposite direction.

    Doyle;
    More or less my point above. But put in terms of actual field work. There are some important points here to make:

    IMichael writes;
    And a few times people have erased recordings once they realized what was on the recording. Or in one interesting case, I was asked to record a sequel in which several interactants re-contextualized the original recording.

    Doyle;
    This exactly describes a technical divide emerging in terms of the ‘framework’ of recording technology. The old paradigm is ‘One-To-Many’ or like going to the theatre to watch a movie; Use-Once-then-Throw-Away.

    If the recording is used in an exchange way as illustrated above it is important to note what re-contextualization is happening. That is the culture boundary being observed and mapped.

    We can see that broadly speaking between different language groups where basic language exchange (bi-linguism) is not happening. We might say that binds cultures to the area of the language, but a lot of culture is imparted not so much by language exchange but by direct observation and imitation. If we factor in some of the theory of mirror neurons. So that people actually are attracted to certain sorts of information to copy. We loosen up the attachment to language as the culture builder, but keep it for how it fits a greater degree of exchange of information which imitation cannot provide.

    Let’s take the current netflix offer of unlimited internet choices to view movies on their site. This ability to call up, re-use (exchange) movies is a fundamental sweeping change of how to understand the creation of information. Exchange arises out of the network structure of trading. So that we might say a network can be mapped (bounded by how many nodes and edges ((graph theory in math)), and by what rules of exchange) so that a sense of culture is noted.
    thanks,
    Doyle

  12. An audio recorder and a video camera are very different beasts – especially when you have a boom operator as well. Sure, if you are with your subjects 24/7 they still might get accustomed to it (as has been reported in accounts of observational filmmakers from the 70s – when equipment was even larger and more obvious), but it is unlikely when doing a shorter intervention. Even less so in a large community where you are constantly encountering new subjects.

    Not to mention working with media-savvy subjects who may be involved in producing their own documentary films. Do you think Madonna ever forgot about the presence of the camera when they were making Truth-or-Dare?

    The real question is how much it matters that people are aware of the camera. As Rex and Daniel pointed out, people are always “putting on a show” (especially actors!) so while we might be getting a slightly different kind of show than before, there isn’t really anything wrong with that per-se. What is more important is that the subjects trust you to shape and report that show in a way faithful to their own point of view (or at least not overly harmful to it). Without that trust they will give you a very limited range of performances.

  13. Kerim wrote;
    What is more important is that the subjects trust you to shape and report that show in a way faithful to their own point of view (or at least not overly harmful to it). Without that trust they will give you a very limited range of performances.

    Doyle;
    Well I think you miss something about ‘re-contextualizing’. Trust is important, but making a movie of a subject usually means they won’t see the product again. The disconnect from the movie interrupts how trust is built in people. By showing how people can look at and align the process of the movie to their selves a sense of accuracy and trust is built up that a one way process makes very difficult to ‘feel’.

    Famous performers are trained in using their bodies in space to communicate. But let’s shift the context slightly, most people know if a person they talk to shares their language or does not. So sharing language is an exchange process both persons are trained in. So it is with the performer who is trained to show visually certain sorts of information which as I’ve noted earlier is not language like, but more about imitative cognition, but still imparts cultural meaning.

    Peformers are used to One-To-Many media processes and develop an attitude related to they can’t have full exchange with the audience. Their performance reflects that experience. A language exchange imparts upon fluent speakers a fuller connection of minds. The relative unstable connection of a performer in the sense of one way processes is easily exposed by engaging in language exchange. Deception in language has to do with the relative inability of language to communicate enough information in real time. Which is not what a performer has to deal with.

    All of which are quite interesting elements in the culture of communication.
    thanks,
    Doyle

  14. To Rex: I doubt that age and wisdom lead to freedom from error. There’s a Japanese saying that even monkeys fall from trees. Aged monkeys are, if anything, more likely to fall.

    Wondering where this thought came from, I recall that my daughter and son-in-law, both pilots, talk about how “monkey skills” decline with aging.

  15. Kerim wrote:

    An audio recorder and a video camera are very different beasts – especially when you have a boom operator as well.

    Heh, yeah, the boom operator *would* tend to draw a bit of attention…

    Kerim wrote:

    The real question is how much it matters that people are aware of the camera. As Rex and Daniel pointed out, people are always “putting on a show” (especially actors!) so while we might be getting a slightly different kind of show than before, there isn’t really anything wrong with that per-se.

    Right, I agree that there is nothing wrong with recording performances (which is how I read “putting on a show”) and using them as the bases for our understandings. And I also agree on the importance of the question regarding how much (and perhaps more significantly *in what way*) it matters that people are aware of the camera (or audio recorder).

    I guess what I feel uneasy about in this discussion is what I perceive to be the collapsing of distinctions between two important senses of ‘performance’, manifest (to me) in the ‘people are always putting on a show’ comment. If by using ‘performance’ (i.e. ‘show’) one refers to the continuous process of recipient design in communicative behavior, then, yes, performance clearly permeates communicative activity.

    But personally, I think that using the term ‘performance’ in this broad way evacuates it of much of its utility. I think that the sense going back to Bauman, in which performance is bound up with the assumption of responsibility for a display of communicative competence before an audience (physically co-present or not), is more descriptively and analytically helpful.

    For example, and apropos to our discussion, this latter sense is useful in understanding why there is, for many people, a big difference between recorded communication and unrecorded communication. In the latter case, the evanescent nature of interaction shields the interactants from accountability to a larger audience, whereas the recording (be it video or audio) opens them up to being accountable for what they said. They are on the record (and I think that John McCreery’s comments regarding his experience in Japan are very relevant here). For this reason, recording tends to trigger performance (in Bauman’s sense), because recording frequently thrusts accountability willy-nilly on the person being recorded.

    And I would have to say that people are *not* always ‘performing’ in this latter sense of performance (ok, well maybe Madonna…). And it is precisely this issue that makes makes question-asking interviews with a camera and boom operator, which trigger performance, matter methodologically. Perhaps I misunderstand, but I read the ‘people are always putting on a show’ argument as dismissing the epistemological issues raised by the fact that different methodologies tend to key different kinds of performances, which in turn have different relationships to the phenomenon one wishes to understand.

  16. lmichael writes;
    And it is precisely this issue that makes makes question-asking interviews with a camera and boom operator,

    Doyle;
    Well the person recording can use a lapel microphone which visually the person being interviewed can’t see. The lapel in my experience picks up pretty good despite some level of technical disparity with a directional microphone. And make the camera less obtrusive, though it is seems to me one doesn’t want to deceive as much as make an effort to be less showy with the recording. Even the idea of less showy is a bit off muddle because I think a big camera precludes a lot of intimacy connection processes that are related to the subtle rhythms of using the body that the big camera can’t follow.

    As to being on record this is not really as you make it seem. The assumption behind this is that anything shot is going to be easily referrred to, but movies are really far harder to get hands on in the past than is written notes. There is a central problem with audio and video records, they must be reviewed in real time to ‘know’ the content. Shoot 110 hours of movie, and you have to watch enough movie to find the place to make note of. This enormous span of time is a difficult barrier to attend to, by comparison to reading and scanning.

    This is changing with what search engines can do, but the sense of being on record is really a myth about content in movies. As to performance, if one talks to someone is that a performance? Certainly, it is the best face of someone representing their culture except when it is not. How does the researcher know how to elicit a non-performance? Citing trust I think merely means not so much non-performance but exposure of some aspects of information that is socially not exposed in many cases.

    This is a strategy of non-interference, or keeping shy of the feelings of intimate contact that might bring the barriers back up. I think this is a relatively naive technical view of information. In essence this is a sort of theory of emotions rather than communications. To get intimate details is not so hard as long as someone seems as if they won’t harm one and their interest and attention feels good to the subject. That’s emotion structure not words being spoken.

    Another way to consider this problem is to consider the difference between what an avatar could elicit and what an interviewer can do. The avatar is not precisely a human cognition but can show an emotion structure geared to some sort of interaction template. For example set a laptop down in front of the subject, with an on monitor camera. Measure the subjects visual attention and put out information in that way according to the avatar the subject is attending to on the monitor.

    Such interviews can be done at a distance (wirelessly across the world), and the design of the interview can vastly differ from traditional person to person interviews. Or alternatively, use the concept of critter cams, where the subject wears the video recorder all day collecting a view of what they see. Since the camera is outside their view it is harder for the person to conceptualize it’s impact on social structure.

    This sort of technique also gives insight into the relationship between verbal connection and body connection. These being two different methods of connecting. We tend to conflate performers body communicating with their verbal communication. But what is what is often worth better scientific assessment. For example, how does verbal interact with body?
    thanks,
    Doyle

  17. Perhaps I misunderstand, but I read the ‘people are always putting on a show’ argument as dismissing the epistemological issues raised by the fact that different methodologies tend to key different kinds of performances, which in turn have different relationships to the phenomenon one wishes to understand.

    Yes, I was dismissing these issues. Not because they aren’t there, or important but because I didn’t feel I could do them justice in a blog comment. (Although lmichael has proven me wrong.) Culture is dialogic and not the product of a pre-defined script. But working with actors I have been thinking of performance a lot lately.

    Precisely because of the methodological limits of interviews, especially in dealing with sensitive subjects, we have encouraged the actors to write short-plays for the film. These performances are initially improvised, but a script is prepared before we shoot. Because their experience is in street theater we then work with them to block out the scenes for the camera and shoot them using a mixture of actors and non-actors from the community.

    Even then, there are certain subjects that are off-limits even in theatrical form. There is a strong bias within the community about revealing too much information to “outsiders” and we don’t want to put anyone in danger of violating the social norms of the community. Next year (hopefully it will be done by then) we will return with a rough cut to show the community and get their blessing before releasing it to a wider audience. I hope to write more about the methodological choices we made when the film is in the can.

  18. I’m a doc student working on understanding ethnography and stumbled onto this sight from a Heisenbeg effect on Ethnography search (go figure). I’m also a an experienced actor and stage director and have found your discussion extremely thought provoking. Anybody who has ever been interviewed and combed their hair or changed their clothes before hand can be sure of having acted on some level. Heck, ever since I saw Candid Camera as kid, I’ve had the sneaking suspicion I was being filmed for someone else’s amusement at every public place I visited. We grew up with the idea that being recored in any form gave you potential celebrity status. I’m gonna be a star! While all that may be changing given the proliferation of compact, easy to use recording devices and the prospect of having your youtube video going viral, this question of how to collect data with recordings is as pertinent as ever. None of us would probably agree that hidden cameras or wire (or wireless) taps should be employed, yet how else do capture real data uninfluenced by the need, urge, desire, responsibility to perform? In ethnography, we tend to throw our presence into the mix, taking into account the influence we have had in the process. We need to acknowledge not only our intrusion, and the bias we bring as well. What dog do we have in this fight? Would that the media were so conscientious. Imagine a major news outlet saying upfront: “We believe that public schools should be replaced with for profit institutions that will decide what students need to learn in order to perpetuate our current system of economic inequality. Our stories tonight reflect that bias”. Ethnographers are held to these standards. The media not so. Again, go figure. But I digress. Getting authentic responses in interviews is a concern that we all face and I think you are all are doing a great job of having the complicated conversation necessary to meet that challenge.

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