Inhibition of Return in Fear of Spiders: Discrepant Eye Movement and Reaction Time Data

Abstract

Inhibition of return (IOR) refers to a bias against returning the attention to a previously attended location. As a foraging facilitator it is thought to facilitate systematic visual search. With respect to neutral stimuli, this is generally thought to be adaptive, but when threatening stimuli appear in our environment, such a bias may be maladaptive. This experiment investigated the influence of phobia-related stimuli on the IOR effect using a discrimination task. A sample of 50 students (25 high, 25 low in spider fear) completed an IOR task including schematic representations of spiders or butterflies as targets. Eye movements were recorded and to assess discrimination among targets, participants indicated with button presses if targets were spiders or butterflies. Reaction time data did not reveal a significant IOR effect but a significant interaction of group and target; spider fearful participants were faster to respond to spider targets than to butterflies. Furthermore, eye-tracking data showed a robust IOR effect independent of stimulus category. These results offer a more comprehensive assessment of the motor and oculomotor factors involved in the IOR effect.

The priority of goal-relevant information and evolutionarily threatening information in early attention processing:Evidence from behavioral and ERP study

“…In particular, a wealth of studies have shown that threatening information attracts attention. Various kinds of threatening stimuli, such as angry faces 3,4 , dangerous animals [5][6][7] , and violent situations 8 , have been included in these studies. Recent evidence has revealed that the automatic processing of threatening information is inherent.…”

Threat vs. Threat: Attention to Fear-Related Animals and Threatening Faces

“…Indeed, compelling evidence indicates that fear-related animals are preferentially processed ( Macleod and Mathews, 1988 ), which manifests itself in eye-tracking research as longer fixation durations or as greater skin conductance responses compared to neutral stimuli ( Gerdes et al, 2008 , 2009a ; Wiemer et al, 2013 ). Still, the stimuli used in such studies are typically very diverse, e.g., potentially threatening animals like snakes, spiders, insects ( Lipp, 2006 ; Rinck and Becker, 2006 ; Gerdes et al, 2008 , 2009b ; Weymar et al, 2013 ; Berdica et al, 2014 , 2017 ).…”

The Influence of Image Salience on the Artistic Renditions of Cave Lions in the Early Upper Paleolithic

“…Inspired by a Darwinian perspective of threat assessment, there is a growing literature on human responses to viewing dangerous animals, mostly using photographs of snakes and spiders known to engender phobic responses (see LoBue, Matthews, Harvey, & Stark, 2014). The experimental protocols used in these studies resemble those employed for face perception and typically evaluate subjective attitudes, viewer reaction times, and physiological measures (e.g., Berdica, Gerdes, Pittig, & Alpers, 2014). Controlled presentations of animal images in laboratory settings can provide information on the specific perceptual properties of these animals that attract attention and influence rapid decision making, including aesthetic preferences (cf.…”