Benedict Carey in an article earlier this week in the NY Times reviews some recent research on blushing and the social functions it seems to serve. For details, see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/health/02mind.html?ref=science Given that TiPS is a text-based medium where face-to-face interaction is not possible, all sorts of communicative cues are absent (especially obvious cues to when one is being ironic or sarcastic) but I have the feeling that if one reviews that posts made over time one might find messages that one could predict cause the author or person being discussed to blush. Then again, given certain people's style of posting, it also seems that some people never blush (NOTE: not that they cannot blush, they just never appear to have the interpretation and emotional reaction that would lead to a blush). Then again, as good scientists, the most parsimonious position would be that Tipsters don't blush because we have no evidence that they do. Some might argue that Tipsters are like ordinary people and since ordinary people blush it is reasonable to infer that Tipsters also blush. I feel, however, that proving that Tipsters are like ordinary people is an even harder proposition to support than the proposition that they blush. :-) ;-) :-D -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
