Trypophobic images gain preferential access to early visual processes

Shirai, Risako; Ogawa, Hirokazu

doi:10.1016/j.concog.2018.11.009

Cited by 12 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Le et al (2015) removed excess energy from trypophobic images (giving them 1/f natural image spectra but kept the original phase spectra intact) and showed that trypophobic comfort was unaffected compared to the original images (even among trypophobic individuals). Shirai and Ogawa (2019) found that trypophobic images enter visual awareness sooner than fear-related and neutral images, but scrambled phase spectra of the same trypophobic images (leaving the original amplitude spectrum intact) mitigated the "pre-perceptual" processing effect. However, during "post-perceptual" processing, phase-scrambled images were rated more negatively than other image types.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Object Clusters or Spectral Energy? Assessing the Relative Contributions of Image Phase and Amplitude Spectra to Trypophobia

Pipitone

DiMattina

2020

Front. Psychol.

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Trypophobia refers to the visual discomfort experienced by some people when viewing clustered patterns (e.g., clusters of holes). Trypophobic images deviate from the 1/f amplitude spectra typically characterizing natural images by containing excess energy at mid-range spatial frequencies. While recent work provides partial support for the idea of excess mid-range spatial frequency energy causing visual discomfort when viewing trypophobic images, a full factorial manipulation of image phase and amplitude spectra has yet to be conducted in order to determine whether the phase spectrum (sinusoidal waveform patterns that comprise image details like edge and texture elements) also plays a role in trypophobic discomfort. Here, we independently manipulated the phase and amplitude spectra of 31 Trypophobic images using a standard Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). Participants rated the four different versions of each image for levels of visual comfort, and completed the Trypophobia Questionnaire (TQ). Images having the original phase spectra intact (with either original or 1/f amplitude) explained the most variance in comfort ratings and were rated lowest in comfort. However, images with the original amplitude spectra but scrambled phase spectra were rated higher in comfort, with a smaller amount of variance in comfort attributed to the amplitude spectrum. Participant TQ scores correlated with comfort ratings only for images having the original phase spectra intact. There was no correlation between TQ scores and comfort levels when participants viewed the original amplitude / phase-scrambled images. Taken together, the present findings show that the phase spectrum of trypophobic images, which determines the pattern of small clusters of objects, plays a much larger role than the amplitude spectrum in determining visual discomfort.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

Object Clusters or Spectral Energy? Assessing the Relative Contributions of Image Phase and Amplitude Spectra to Trypophobia

Pipitone

DiMattina

2020

Front. Psychol.

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“…al., (2015) removed excess energy from trypophobic images (giving them 1/f natural image spectra but kept the original phase spectra intact) and showed that trypophobic comfort was unaffected compared to the original images (even among trypophobic individuals). Shirai & Ogawa (2019) found that trypophobic images enter visual awareness sooner than fear-related and neutral images, but scrambled phase spectra of the same trypophobic images (leaving the original amplitude spectrum intact) mitigated the "pre-perceptual" processing effect. However, during "post-perceptual" processing, phase-scrambled images were rated more negatively than other image types.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…Le et al (2015) filtered trypophobic images to have a 1/f natural image spectra, thus removing the excess mid-range energy, and found that those images continued to invoke visual discomfort. Using a continuous flash suppression technique to measure access to early visual awareness, Shirai & Ogawa (2019) recently showed that trypophobic images enter visual awareness earlier than fearful or neutral images, but a second experiment in which these images were phasescrambled (but the original amplitude spectrum was left intact) mitigated the early awareness effect. These recent findings suggest that the energy spectra of trypophobic images may not be solely responsible for evoking visual discomfort.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Object Clusters or Spectral Energy? Assessing the Relative Contributions of Image Phase and Amplitude Spectra to Trypophobia

Pipitone¹,

DiMattina²

2019

Preprint

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Trypophobia refers to the visual discomfort experienced by some people when viewing clustered patterns (e.g., clusters of holes). Trypophobic images deviate from the 1/f amplitude spectra typically characterizing natural images by containing excess energy at mid-range spatial frequencies. While recent work provides partial support for the idea of excess mid-range spatial frequency energy causing visual discomfort when viewing trypophobic images, a full factorial manipulation of image phase and amplitude spectra has yet to be conducted. Here, we independently manipulated the phase and amplitude spectra of 31 Trypophobic images using a standard Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). Participants rated the four different versions of each image for levels of visual comfort, and completed the Trypophobia Questionnaire (TQ). Images having the original phase spectra intact (with either original or 1/f amplitude) explained the most variance in comfort ratings and were rated lowest in comfort. However, images with the original amplitude spectra but scrambled phase spectra were rated higher in comfort, with a smaller amount of variance in comfort attributed to the amplitude spectrum. Participant TQ scores correlated with comfort ratings only for images having the original phase spectra intact. There was no correlation between TQ scores and comfort levels when participants viewed the original amplitude / phase-scrambled images. Taken together, the present findings show that the phase spectrum of trypophobic images, which determines the pattern of small clusters of objects, plays a much larger role than the amplitude spectrum in determining visual comfort.

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“…Another study revealed that low-and mid-spatial frequency information contributed to trypophobia (Sasaki et al, 2017). Based on these findings, trypophobic objects may be processed rapidly and unconsciously; indeed, there is empirical evidence supporting this (Sasaki, Watanabe & Yamada, 2018;Shirai & Ogawa, 2019). Taken together, early visual processing plays key roles in trypophobia.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Trypophobia as an urbanized emotion: comparative research in ethnic minority regions of China

Zhu

Sasaki

Jiang

et al. 2020

PeerJ

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Trypophobia is a strong emotion of disgust evoked by clusters of holes or round objects (e.g., lotus seed pod). It has become increasingly popular and been studied since 2010s, mainly in the West and Japan. Considering this, trypophobia might be a modern emotion, and hence urbanization possibly plays key roles in trypophobia. To address this issue, we compared the degree of trypophobia between urban and less urban people in China. In an experiment, we asked participants about their degree of discomfort from trypophobic images. The results showed that trypophobia occurred in both groups, although the effect size was larger in urban than less urban people. Moreover, post-experimental interviews and post-hoc analyses revealed that older people in less urban area did not experience as much trypophobia. Our findings suggest that trypophobia links to urbanization and age-related properties.

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Trypophobic images gain preferential access to early visual processes

Cited by 12 publications

References 49 publications

Object Clusters or Spectral Energy? Assessing the Relative Contributions of Image Phase and Amplitude Spectra to Trypophobia

Object Clusters or Spectral Energy? Assessing the Relative Contributions of Image Phase and Amplitude Spectra to Trypophobia

Object Clusters or Spectral Energy? Assessing the Relative Contributions of Image Phase and Amplitude Spectra to Trypophobia

Trypophobia as an urbanized emotion: comparative research in ethnic minority regions of China

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