Talk:Jumping Frenchmen of Maine

older query
"... it was brought on by conditions at their lumber camps and was psychological, not neurological." What conditions in the camps were those? GangofOne 01:50, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Special Circumstances
Those conditions are called exposure to visual Subliminal Distraction. They appear in the business office design field and are only known among those who work with "Systems Furniture, Cubicles"

The connection between Latah and JFMD is that in both cases many people live in a single-room arrangement. Bunkhouses were used in Maine and Longhouses in Malaysia.

In the case of Latah, when someone performs work requiring concentration and needs enough light to see the object being repaired or constructed they must sit by a door in a longhouse. The movement of others in and out that door will be subliminally detected by the worker. Sheltered porches running the length of the longhouse provide other spaces for workers but the same exposure can happen.

In 1880's Maine reading, repairing cold weather gear, or sharpening tools for the next day's work allowed similar exposure.

JFMD disappeared when modern logging equipment replaced remote lumber camps and bunkhouses.

Jumping diseases appear around the world where families and groups live in small, single-room huts, hogans, yurts, and other housing that forces close confinement.

The phenomenon to cause the problem was discovered in the 1960's when knowledge workers began having mental breaks while using newly designed movable workstations. The problem was researched and it was discovered that subliminal sight and peripheral vision reflexes had acted to cause the mental events. By 1968 Herman Miller Inc had added movable panels to block peripheral vision for a concentrating worker. The mental breaks stopped. A biography of Robert Propst on the company site claims invention of the Cubicle in 1968.

In Dr. Ronald C Simmons' book "Boo! Culture, Experience, and the Startle Reflex," he relates cases of the startle and behavior-matching syndrome appearing in factories in the US.

The links and other information are available at VisionAndPsychosis.Net.

http://VisionAndPsychosis.Net

http://visionandpsychosis.net/Culture_Bound_Syndromes.htm

An example of other psychiatric symptoms being caused by exposure to Subliminal Distraction is the Belgian Polar Expedition of 1898. Eighteen men trapped on the Belgica, locked in polar ice, began to go insane. The same mental breaks have happened in modern polar scientific stations and aboard the Russian space mission, Salut 5 - Soyuz 21. An article from the Smithsonian Air and Space magazine cites several Russian missions with problems including fist fights over chess games.

Brief quotes about that expedition from "Through the First Antarctic Night," Cook, are available on this page.

http://visionandpsychosis.net/Astronauts_Insanity.htm

Other material is from "Bold Endeavors," Stuster.

L K Tucker 68.19.43.214 22:11, 16 January 2006 (UTC)


 * WHy not add this to the article? GangofOne 22:53, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

GangofOne Answer
Visual Subliminal Distraction is not recognized in the United States. As fast as you can write this into the article someone will remove it.

Go to the Shawn Woolley entry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Shawn_Woolley

Although the Woolley article uses some of my research the information involving Subliminal Distraction was deleted.

Ph.D.'s in psychology cannot believe that the entire office furniture industry around the world could not exist without Cubicle Level Protection.

I am working on finding the original publication of the discovery. I should have received a thesis from a Master's degree candidate in Australia but she has probably lost my email address.

L K Tucker 68.19.34.74 00:07, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

weird definition in introductory para.
Surely Jumping Frenchmen of Maine is actually a term referring to sufferers from the said rare disorder?  tomasz.  14:19, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * "Jumping Frenchmen of Maine is a rare disorder..."
 * This does seem odd. Some medical sources call it "Jumping Frenchmen of Maine syndrome", which seems clearer - I'll edit the article to match. --McGeddon (talk) 09:49, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Startle Matching behaviors
It is actually a name given to a behavior. Note the other names it has below. They do not refer to people. You did not visit my Culture Bound Syndromes page. This is not a "rare disorder." It appears in many places under different names.It also appears as Latah in Malaysia, as Bah-tchi in Thailand, Myiachit in Siberia, and Lapp Panic in Greenland. In Malaysia entire villages live in a single longhouse copying the Mooselake Maine situation. In other countries too-small single-room ethnic housing, tents, yurts, hogans, fishing shacks, or even temporary shelters all provide opportunities for Subliminal Distraction exposure to function as subliminal operant conditioning if all the other elements of exposure are present. Jumping Frenchmen of Maine as a startle matching behavior is the key to understanding what Culture Bound Syndromes are and what causes them.

L K Tucker24.96.50.245 (talk) 00:42, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
 * My point is purely about nomenclature: "Frenchmen" suggests a reference to people rather than a condition of whatever sort. i actually couldn't care less about your Culture Bound Syndromes page.  tomasz.  11:24, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Factually incorrect
The article assumes that the acoustic startle reflex is responsible for matching behaviors. There is no testable evidence that this is true.

Evidence in the living arrangements where these behaviors, Culture Bound Syndromes, happen that it is the suppression of the vision startle reflex and the resulting Subliminal Operant Conditioning from Subliminal Distraction exposure that causes Culture Bound Syndromes. L K Tucker 24.96.50.245 (talk) 00:53, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

a joke?
"He had a unique interest in unusual disorders and immediately jumped at the opportunity to observe the endemic in Maine."

was that bold line supposed to be a joke? 82.46.111.137 (talk) 21:30, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Rewrite
I've rewritten this article (from this to this) to conform with WP:MEDMOS, to copyedit and remove stubby sections and a rambling Table of Contents, primary sources, inaccurate information, and to remove large amounts of text that do not belong in this article. Some of that text may find a home at startle reflex, some at George Miller Beard, but it doesn't belong here; on Wikipedia, we can link to articles for additional detail, so we don't need to repeat information here that is better covered in another article. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 15:27, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Still Missing
There is information that M. H. StHilare investigated the phenomenon and concluded it could be caused by operant conditioning due to the "special circumstances" in the lumber camps.

Subliminal Distraction can function as subliminal operant conditioning.

L K Tucker 108.206.18.197 (talk) 05:18, 23 August 2014 (UTC)