Electronic Eyes: The Cognitive Effects of Webcam Surveillance
Summary
A side effect of the recent pandemic is that we now often view one another through the lens
of a webcam. Physical communication has been replaced by online technologies. However,
relatively little is known about the cognitive, behavioural and psychological effects that they
may induce (Claypoole & Szalma, 2019). In this study, we aim to look at webcam
surveillance monitoring, part of a pool of literature known as electronic performance
monitoring (Ravid, 2020). We hypothesize that webcams elicit similar effects to social
presence, and restrict participants’ attention capacity, resulting in a decrease in cognitive
performance. A total of 87 participants completed an online recognition-memory (RM) task
and Stroop task. Half of these participants were told they were being recorded, while the
other half were not. Linear mixed effects models revealed that participants were not
significantly slower or less accurate in the webcam condition. However, when making errors,
participants in the Stroop task were significantly slower in the webcam group, and in the RM
task, significantly faster at responding to trials. The bi-directional nature of the effects can be
partly explained by aspects of Social Facilitation Theory (Zajonc, 1965). We conclude that
when one must elicit cognitive control in the presence of surveillance technology, and errors
are made, it seems that this decision-making process is negatively influenced by the presence
of a webcam, and the direction of the effect is moderated by the difficulty of the task.