Snakes, spiders, guns, and syringes: How specific are evolutionary constraints on the detection of threatening stimuli?

Abstract

In three experiments, the efficiency in detecting fear-relevant and fear-irrelevant visual stimuli are compared. A visual search paradigm is used where participants are presented with matrices of different sizes (4 objects/9 objects) and must determine whether all objects are taken from the same category or whether there is a discrepant one. Results from all experiments were consistent with the threat-superiority effect. Participants were quicker when the target was threatening than when it was not. Other indicators confirmed that the detection of threatening targets involves more efficient processes (reduced slopes, absence of position effects). A crucial aspect of these experiments was the comparison of evolutionary-relevant (snakes, spiders, etc.) and modern (guns, syringes, etc.) threats. The threat-superiority effect was repeatedly found for both types of target. Stronger effects were sometimes observed for modern than for evolutionary-relevant threats. The implications for evolutionary explanations of the effect of fear on visual attention are discussed.

Tagging multiple emotional stimuli: Negative valence has little benefit.

“…Öhman & Mineka, 2001). Consistent with this, previous work has shown that a single negatively valenced stimulus appears to capture or guide attention more strongly than a positively valenced target (Eastwood et al, 2001;Fox et al, 2000;Blanchette, 2006;Lipp et al, 2004). Furthermore, once attended, it might be more difficult to disengage attention from a negative stimulus than from a positive stimulus (e.g., Fox et al, 2001Fox et al, , 2002Georgiou et al, 2005;Fenske & Eastwood, 2003).…”

“…As discussed above, previous visual search studies (Eastwood et al, 2001;Fox et al, 2000;Blanchette, 2006;Lipp et al, 2004;Blagrove & Watson, 2010) have found that negatively valenced targets can attract/guide attention more efficiently than positive targets.…”

“…With relevance to the present work, the growing evidence showing that humans are more efficient at detecting negative stimuli than positive stimuli (Blanchette, 2006) or faces that show a negative emotional expression compared with a positive expression (Eastwood, Smilek & Merikle, 2001;Fox et al, 2000) points towards biological preparedness (Seligman, 1971) or dedicated fear processing mechanisms (LeDoux, 1996(LeDoux, , 1998Öhman & Mineka, 2001). For example, Eastwood and colleagues (2001) demonstrated in a visual search experiment that a negative target face presented amongst neutral faces could be detected more efficiently (i.e.…”

“…the top-down intentional component). With respect to the present work, a substantial body of research has shown than negative stimuli appear to be able to take priority over more neutral stimuli (Blanchette, 2006;Eastwood, Smilek & Merikle, 2001;Lipp, Derakshan, Waters & Logies, 2004). Effectively, the properties of the negative stimulus appear to act as a salient feature allowing it to attract or guide attention.…”

Fenyegető ingerek hatása a figyelmi teljesítményre: Áttekintés

“…Hasonlóképpen Blanchette (2006) is a klasszikus vizuális kereséses eljárást (Öhman, Flykt és Esteves, 2001) alkalmazva a kígyók, pókok és semleges ingerek mellett modern fenyegető ingereket is használt (fegyverek és injekciós tűk) vizsgálatában. A résztvevők gyorsabban találták meg a célingert, mikor az fenyegető volt, mint mikor nem.…”