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Detecting the Snake in the Grass: Attention to Fear-Relevant Stimuli by Adults and Young Children

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Snakes are among the most common targets of fears and phobias. In visual detection tasks, adults detect their presence more rapidly than the presence of other kinds of visual stimuli. We report evidence that very young children share this attentional bias. In three experiments, preschool children and adults were asked to find a single target picture among an array of eight distractors. Both the children and the adults detected snakes more rapidly than three types of nonthreatening stimuli (flowers, frogs, and caterpillars). These results provide the first evidence of enhanced visual detection of evolutionarily relevant threat stimuli in young children.
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Research Article
Detecting the Snake in the Grass
Attention to Fear-Relevant Stimuli by Adults and
Young Children
Vanessa LoBue and Judy S. DeLoache
University of Virginia
ABSTRACT—Snakes are among the most common targets of
fears and phobias. In visual detection tasks, adults detect
their presence more rapidly than the presence of other
kinds of visual stimuli. We report evidence that very young
children share this attentional bias. In three experiments,
preschool children and adults were asked to find a single
target picture among an array of eight distractors. Both
the children and the adults detected snakes more rapidly
than three types of nonthreatening stimuli (flowers, frogs,
and caterpillars). These results provide the first evidence
of enhanced visual detection of evolutionarily relevant
threat stimuli in young children.
Many people—perhaps most—have had the experience of sud-
denly feeling frightened by thepresence of a snake basking in the
sun on the path ahead or nearly hidden in the grass alongside.
Such fearful reactions occur relatively frequently, as most people
have a negative orientation to snakes, and snakes constitute one
of the most common objects of intense fears and phobias (Fred-
rikson, Annas, Rischer, & Wik, 1996; King, 1997). Fearful re-
actions to snakes have also been observed in a variety of
nonhuman primates (e.g., Cook & Mineka, 1989; Yerkes, 1943).
The prevalence of snake fear has led some theorists (e.g.,
O
¨hman & Mineka, 2001; Seligman, 1970) to consider it to be an
example of prepared learning, the idea being that humans have
an evolved predisposition to associate snakes with fear. Ac-
cording to this view, poisonous snakes (and spiders) constituted
a recurrent threat to survival throughout most of mammalian
evolution, so animals that quickly learned to avoid them were
more likely to survive, reproduce, and pass on their genes.
Consequently, a tendency to readily learn to fear snakes evolved
in humans and other mammals.
Empirical support for prepared learning of snake fear in hu-
mans has come from research with adults showing superior
conditioning of fear-relevant responses (e.g., heart rate accel-
eration) to snake stimuli (see O
¨hman & Mineka, 2001, for a
review). Evidence for prepared learning in nonhuman primates
has come from research by Mineka and her colleagues (Cook &
Mineka, 1989; O
¨hman & Mineka, 2001) showing that monkeys
very rapidly learn to fear snakes simply from seeing another
monkey react fearfully to the presence of a snake.
In a related vein, O
¨hman (1993; O
¨hman & Mineka, 2001)
proposed the existence of an evolved fear module—a neural
system that is selectively sensitive to evolutionarily relevant
threat stimuli. The evolutionary claim is that individuals who
more rapidly detected the stimulus attributes signifying the
presence of a poisonous snake or a spider would have been more
likely to escape the danger and hence to survive and reproduce.
As a consequence, a mechanism supporting the rapid detection
of this type of dangerous stimulus evolved.
The claim for the existence of a bias toward the rapid detec-
tion of evolutionarily relevant threat stimuli has received em-
pirical support from visual search studies showing faster
detection of fear-relevant than fear-irrelevant stimuli. O
¨hman,
Flykt, and Esteves (2001) presented participants with matrices
consisting of pictures of snakes (fear relevant) and flowers (fear
irrelevant). One of the two types of stimuli was designated the
target, and each matrix included either a single target or no
target. Participants had to decide as quickly as possible whether
or not the target was present in each trial. They reliably detected
the presence of a snake target among flowers more quickly than a
flower target among snakes. The same pattern of results was
obtained for spiders versus mushrooms. Moreover, participants
who reported being afraid of snakes found snake targets even
faster than nonfearful individuals did.
The basic finding reported by O
¨hman et al. (2001)—more
rapid detection of snakes and spiders than of non-threat-rele-
vant stimuli—has been replicated by several other investigators
(e.g., Lipp, Derakshan, Waters, & Logies, 2004; Tipples, Young,
Address correspondence to Vanessa LoBue, University of Virginia,
PO Box 400400, Charlottesville, VA 22904, e-mail: vl8m@virginia.
edu.
PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
284 Volume 19—Number 3Copyright r2008 Association for Psychological Science
Quinlan, Broks, & Ellis, 2002). However, some of the results of
these studies are inconsistent with the conclusions reached by
O
¨hman et al. In some cases, superior detection was also found for
non-threat-relevant animals (e.g., bears, dogs, and kittens; Tipples
et al., 2002). In addition, there are reports of superior detection of
modern threatening stimuli (e.g., syringes, guns, and knives;
Blanchette, 2006; Brosch & Sharma, 2005). Furthermore, in some
of these studies, results varied with the number of distractors,
contrary to the analysis offered by O
¨hman et al.
All of these visual search results and claims are based on adult
participants, who presumably have extensive knowledge about
snakes and various kinds and degrees of experience with them
(Rachman, 2002). However, if humans have an evolved ability to
detect threat-relevant stimuli exceptionally quickly, as proposed
by O
¨hman (O
¨hman et al., 2001; O
¨hman & Mineka, 2001), the
tendency might be observable in individuals with relatively little or
no experience with such stimuli. Thus, the primary goal of the
research reported here was to take a developmental approach to the
topic of threat detection, examining the visual detection of evolu-
tionarily relevant threat stimuli—snakes—by very young children.
A second goal was to expand the range of comparison stimuli
used to examine the detection of snakes. All of the previous re-
search compared detection of snakes with detection of one or two
nonthreat stimuli (typically flowers or plants). In contrast, we
comparedthe detection of snakes with the detection of a variety of
other types of stimuli, including, most notably, other animals.
These comparisons provide particularly strong tests of the hy-
pothesized advantage for the detection of threat-relevant stimuli.
GENERAL METHOD
For all the experiments reported here, we presented both pre-
school children and adults with 3 3 matrices of color photo-
graphs of threat-relevant and threat-irrelevant stimuli. The
participants were asked to find the one threat-relevant target
(snake) among eight threat-irrelevant distractors or the one
threat-irrelevant target among eight threat-relevant distractors.
Two changes to the standard visual search task were instituted to
make the procedure appropriate for young children. First, so that
we could obtain reliable reaction time data from 3- to 5-year-
olds, we presented the stimuli on a touch-screen monitor, asking
each participant to touch the target on the screen as quickly as
possible (see Fig. 1). Second, only target-present matrices were
presented, because the touch-screen procedure precluded the
inclusion of no-target matrices. We assumed that the latency to
touch a target would be affected by any differential respon-
siveness to evolutionarily relevant threat stimuli versus non-
threat stimuli.
Participants
The participants in the experiments were one hundred twenty 3-
to 5-year-old children and their 120 accompanying parents.
Equal numbers of boys and girls participated in each study; all
but 5 parents were female. The children and parents were re-
cruited from records of birth announcements in the local com-
munity and were predominantly Caucasian and middle-class.
Each child was randomly assigned to one of two target conditions
and one of two stimulus orders. For convenience, each parent
was assigned to the same condition as his or her child.
Prior to testing, the parents were asked whether the children
had ever seen a live snake and whether the children were afraid
of snakes. Parents also indicated whether they themselves were
afraid of snakes.
Materials
For each experiment, we selected 24 photographs for each stim-
ulus category. On a given trial, 9 of these photographs were
displayed in a 3 3 matrix. Each matrix contained 1 target
picture from one category and 8 distractor pictures from another
category. Across the experiments, the stimulus categories were
snakes, flowers, frogs, and caterpillars. All the depicted animals
and flowers were brightly colored. The snakes were all depicted
coiled on the ground or in trees (to maximize the size of the snake
images). None of the snakes or other animals were depicted in a
threatening pose. The photographs were scanned from nature
books and adjusted to an image size of 325 245 pixels. A coder
blind to the purpose of the research rated the brightness of
all pictures on a scale from 1 (very bright)to5(very dull). The
average ratings for the snakes, flowers, frogs, and caterpillars
were 2.7, 2.7, 2.8, and 2.5, respectively.
A MultiSync LCD 2010X color touch-screen monitor was
used to present each picture matrix on a 61-cm (24-in.) screen.
The overall matrix size was 39.4 cm 39.4 cm, with 1.27 cm
between rows and 0.64 cm between columns. The individual
pictures measured 11.47 8.64 cm. Each of the 24 pictures in
the target category served as the target once, appearing in each
of the nine positions in the matrix two or three times. Each of the
24 pictures in the distractor category appeared multiple times;
the different distractors were presented approximately the same
Fig. 1. A preschool child identifying the single flower target among eight
snake distractors by touching the flower image on a touch-screen monitor.
Volume 19—Number 3 285
Vanessa LoBue and Judy S. DeLoache
number of times across trials. One stimulus order was created by
randomly arranging the matrices, and the second order was the
reverse of the first. An outline of a child’s handprints was located
on the table immediately in front of the monitor.
Procedure
The child was seated in front of the touch-screen monitor (ap-
proximately 40 cm from the base of the screen) and told to place his
or her hands on the handprints. This ensured that the child’s hands
were in the same place at the start of each trial, making it possible
to collect reliable latency data. The experimenter stood alongside
to monitor and instruct the child throughout the procedure.
First, a set of seven practice trials was given to teach the child
how to use the touch screen. On the first two trials, a single
picture appeared on the screen, and the child was asked to touch
it. The first picture was from the target category, and the second
from the distractor category. (All pictures used in the practice
trials were chosen randomly from the original sets of 24.) On the
next two trials, the display consisted of 1 target and 1 distractor
picture, and the child was asked to touch only the target picture.
On each of the final three practice trials, a different 9-picture
matrix was displayed. The child was told that the task was to find
the ‘‘X’’ (target) among ‘‘Ys’’ (distractors) as quickly as possible,
touch it on the screen, and then return his or her hands to the
handprints. All the children readily learned the procedure.
A series of 24 test trials followed. A different picture matrix
containing one target and eight distractors was presented on
each trial. Between trials, a large smiley face appeared on the
screen. The experimenter pressed the face when she judged that
the child was looking at it, causing the next matrix to appear. In
this way, we ensured that the child’s full attention was on the
screen before each matrix appeared. Latency was automatically
recorded from the onset of the matrix to when the child touched
one of the pictures on the screen.
After the child had completed all 24 trials, his or her parent
was tested in exactly the same manner. The parent had not been
told about the experimental hypothesis and had not been present
while the child was tested.
Analyses
In each experiment, latency to touch the target was analyzed in a
2 (target stimulus: snake vs. comparison) 2 (age: children vs.
adults) 2 (child’s snake experience: child reported as having
some experience with snakes vs. child reported as having no
experience with snakes) analysis of variance (ANOVA). All
factors were between subjects. Preliminary analyses revealed no
effects of experimenter, gender, order of stimuli, trial, or parents’
or children’s snake fear (those reported to fear snakes vs. those
reported to have no fear) in any of the experiments, so these
variables were not included in the analyses. Following standard
procedures for visual search tasks, we included only trials in
which the correct target was selected. Participants rarely erred
(fewer than 2% of the trials in Experiment 1 and fewer than 5%
in Experiments 2 and 3), and errors did not vary by target.
EXPERIMENT 1
In Experiment 1, 3- to 5-year-old children and adults were asked
to locate either a single snake target among eight flower dis-
tractors or the lone flower target among eight snakes. Given the
findings for these stimuli in a study with adults (O
¨hman et al.,
2001), we expected that the adults would detect snake targets
more quickly than flower targets. The question of interest was
whether the young children would show the same pattern of
performance.
Participants
The participants were twenty-four 3-year-olds (M540.9
months, range 535.0–46.3 months), twenty-four 4-year-olds
(M553.2 months, range 548.6–59.6 months), and twenty-four
5-year-olds (M565.8 months, range 560.7–71.4 months) and
their 72 parents. Three additional 3-year-olds (1 for whom snakes
were targets and 2 for whom nonthreat stimuli were targets) were
excluded for failure to follow directions. According to parental
report, 55 of the children (81% of the 68 children whose parents
responded) had had some experience with snakes.
1
Results and Discussion
Because the pattern of responding was the same for children in all
three age groups, they were combined for the analyses. The
ANOVA on latency to touch the target yielded significant main
effects of target stimulus, F(1, 140) 59.66, p<.01, p
rep
51.0,
and age, F(1, 140) 5109.04, p<.01, p
rep
51.0.
2
There was no
effect of the child’s experience with snakes, F(1, 140) 51.18, p5
.28, p
rep
5.66, and no interactions were reliable. Not surprisingly,
the adults generally located the targets significantly faster than
the children did. As in prior research, adults were significantly
faster to find the snake among flower distractors than to locate the
lone flower among snakes. This result establishes that our touch-
screen procedure replicates the pattern of the latency data re-
ported for adults (Brosch & Sharma, 2005; O
¨hman et al., 2001).
3
1
Relatively few children were reported by their parents to fear snakes: 14, 1,
and 2 in Experiments 1, 2, and 3, respectively (21%, 4%, and 9% of the
children whose parents responded to this question). Slightly more parents re-
ported that they themselves were fearful of snakes: 30, 10, and 6 (44%, 10%,
and 27% of the parents who responded to this question).
2
ANOVAs in all experiments were repeated with stimuli as random effects. A
significant Fwas obtained for the main effect of target in each experiment (e.g.,
in Experiment 1, snakes vs. nonsnakes), showing that the pattern of results
reported here holds for the population of stimuli from which the items were
drawn.
3
The fact that the touch-screen procedure yielded the same pattern of results
for adults as was obtained in previous research indicates that our adult par-
ticipants—even those who reported snake fear—did not hesitate to touch
snakes on the screen.
286 Volume 19—Number 3
Attention to Fear-Relevant Stimuli
Of most importance, the pattern of performance of the young
children was the same as that of the adults: Like their parents,
the children located the snakes more rapidly than the flowers
(see Fig. 2). This result constitutes the first evidence of which we
are aware that young (preschool-age) children detect threat-
relevant stimuli more quickly than non-threat-relevant ones.
These developmental data are highly relevant to the claim that
humans have a special sensitivity to certain categories of evo-
lutionarily significant threatening stimuli (Marks, 1987; O
¨hman
& Mineka, 2001; Seligman, 1970).
Furthermore, these results suggest that experience with snakes
may not play a major role in human sensitivity to them. Compared
with the adults, the 3- to 5-year-old participants in this experi-
ment had relatively little exposure to representations of snakes or
to facts or cultural lore about snakes. In addition, the children’s
reported extent of exposure to live snakes was unrelated to how
quickly they located the snake and nonsnake targets.
EXPERIMENT 2
In Experiment 1, both adults and young children detected
snakes more rapidly than flowers. Thus, this experiment repli-
cates and extends the results previously reported by O
¨hman et
al. (2001). However, if humans are biased for the rapid detection
of evolutionarily relevant threat stimuli, that bias should be
apparent with a wide range of nonthreat comparison stimuli.
Flowers, the only nonthreat stimulus category used by O
¨hman et
al. (2001), differ from snakes on many dimensions, including the
highly salient perceptual feature of shape. In addition, snakes
are animate, but flowers are not.
A much stronger test of a bias for the detection of threat-rel-
evant stimuli would pit snakes against other animals of similar
physical appearance. Accordingly, in Experiment 2, we com-
pared the detection of snakes versus frogs. Frogs were chosen for
their resemblance to snakes in texture, color, and animacy.
Because there were no differences among children of different
ages in Experiment 1, only 3-year-olds (the age group that had
the least experience with snakes) were tested in Experiment 2.
Participants
In Experiment 2, twenty-four 3-year-olds (M540.9 months,
range 536.3–46.7 months) were tested, along with their 24
parents. Two additional 3-year-olds (1 for whom snakes were
targets and 1 for whom frogs were targets) were excluded for
failure to follow directions. Fifteen of the children (63%) were
reported to have had experience with snakes.
Results and Discussion
In the ANOVA on latency to locate the target, there were sig-
nificant main effects of target stimulus, F(1, 44) 57.27, p<.01,
p
rep
5.95, and age, F(1, 44) 5102.58, p<.01, p
rep
51.0. In both
conditions, adults were quicker to respond than children. There
was no effect of snake experience, F(1, 44) 50.17, p5.68, p
rep
5
.37, and no interactions. Both the children and the adults de-
tected the snakes more quickly than the frogs (see Fig. 2).
The results of Experiment 2 are consistent with those of Ex-
periment 1 in that both children and adults detected the pres-
ence of threat-relevant stimuli more quickly than the presence
of nonthreat stimuli. Experiment 2 provides particularly strong
support for a detection bias for snakes, because no research of
which we are aware has employed such similar threat and
nonthreat stimuli.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
3- to 5-Year-
Olds
Adults 3-Year-Olds Adults 3-Year-Olds Adults
Experiment 1 Experiment 2 Experiment 3
Average Latency per Trial (in Seconds)
Snakes Nonsnakes
Fig. 2. Average latency to detect target stimuli (snakes vs. nonsnakes) among adult and child participants
in Experiments 1 through 3.
Volume 19—Number 3 287
Vanessa LoBue and Judy S. DeLoache
EXPERIMENT 3
Experiment 3 was an even more stringent test of the existence of
a threat-detection bias, as we used caterpillars as the non-
threat-relevant stimulus category. Like our snake stimuli, our
caterpillar stimuli represented animate objects and were
brightly colored. Further, they shared one of the most salient
physical characteristics of snakes—their elongated shape.
Participants
Twenty-four 3-year-olds (M541.8 months, range 536.0–47.1
months) were tested, along with their 24 parents. Three addi-
tional 3-year-olds (1 for whom snakes were targets and 2 for
whom caterpillars were targets) were excluded for failure to
follow directions. Seventeen children (77% of the 22 children
whose parents responded) had experience with snakes.
Results and Discussion
The ANOVA revealed significant main effects of target stimulus,
F(1, 44) 513.42, p<.01, p
rep
5.96, and age, F(1, 44) 529.05,
p<.01, p
rep
51.0, as well as an age-by-target interaction, F(1,
44) 55.12, p<.05, p
rep
5.91. There was no effect of snake
experience, F(1, 44) 50.16, p5.69, p
rep
5.36. The general
pattern of performance was similar to that in Experiments 1 and
2: The adults generally responded more rapidly than the chil-
dren did, and both age groups detected the threat-relevant
snakes more rapidly than the physically similar but non-threat-
relevant caterpillars (see Fig. 2). The one departure from our
previous results was that the difference in latency for responding
to snakes versus nonthreat stimuli was significant only for the
children.
Experiment 3 provides further evidence that even young
children detect threat-relevant targets more quickly than threat-
irrelevant ones, even when there is a high degree of physical
similarity between the two kinds of targets. This result suggests
that the superior detection of snakes is based on their unique
constellation of features.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
The results of the experiments reported here provide the first
evidence of which we are aware for a bias in the detection of
evolutionarily relevant threat stimuli very early in life. The re-
sults of Experiments 1, 2, and 3 demonstrate that young chil-
dren, like adults, detect snakes more quickly than three
different kinds of threat-irrelevant stimuli (flowers, frogs, and
caterpillars). There was remarkable similarity in the pattern of
responses of the preschool children and their parents. These
developmental findings are consistent with O
¨hman’s (1993;
O
¨hman & Mineka, 2001) proposed fear module—a neural sys-
tem that is selectively sensitive to evolutionarily relevant threat
stimuli.
As a further check on the pattern of results in Experiments 1
through 3, we ran a control experiment in which we compared
detection of two categories of non-threat-relevant stimuli—frogs
versus flowers. The claim of priority for processing threat-rele-
vant stimuli has no implications for the relative speed of de-
tecting different fear-irrelevant stimuli. Hence, there is no
theory-based reason to predict a bias for one category over the
other, even for stimuli of such distinctly different perceptual
appearance. The results revealed no difference for either chil-
dren or adults in the detection of a single frog among flowers
versus a single flower among frogs.
4
This predicted null result is informative in the context of the
tests of our theory-based predictions. Five of the six predictions
were supported by the participants’ behavior. In all three stud-
ies, the children detected the threat-relevant stimuli signifi-
cantly faster than the nonthreat stimuli. The adults detected the
threat-relevant stimuli significantly faster than the nonthreat
stimuli in two of the three studies, and the difference was in the
expected direction in the third. Thus, overall, both the adults
and the children responded quite differently to the threat-rele-
vant versus the non-threat-relevant stimuli. When there was no
theory-based reason to expect a difference in speed of detection,
however, none was found.
A particular strength of the experiments reported here is the
exceptionally stringent controls used in Experiments 2 and 3. In
most previous visual search studies, the threat and nonthreat
stimuli have differed on multiple dimensions (e.g., snakes vs.
flowers, spiders vs. mushrooms, various animals vs. plants, guns
and knives vs. clocks and toasters). Our comparison of the de-
tection of threat-relevant and non-threat-relevant stimuli that
were extremely similar in multiple ways (e.g., snakes vs. frogs,
snakes vs. caterpillars) provides a particularly strong test for a
bias in the detection of evolutionarily relevant threat stimuli.
The results reported here are consistent with preliminary
results of a series of studies examining young children’s detec-
tion of a very different type of threat-relevant stimulus—angry
facial expressions. It is well established that adults detect
threatening facial expressions more quickly than nonthreaten-
ing ones (e.g., Hansen & Hansen, 1988; O
¨hman, Lundqvist, &
Esteves, 2001). Using the same procedure as in the research
reported here, we found that preschool children and their par-
ents detected angry and fearful facial expressions more quickly
than happy expressions (LoBue, 2007).
An important question raised by this research is, what is it
about snakes that attracts the visual attention of humans from the
first years of life to adulthood? There are three physical attributes
of snakes that we consider good candidate characteristics.
One is slithering—snakes’ idiosyncratic movement pattern.
This attribute is not relevant to the present studies, in which
4
In addition, pilot studies revealed no differences in detecting a frog among
caterpillars versus a caterpillar among frogs, or in detecting a caterpillar among
flowers versus a flower among caterpillars.
288 Volume 19—Number 3
Attention to Fear-Relevant Stimuli
static images were used. However, in other research, we have
obtained evidence suggesting the importance of movement in
human infants’ response to snakes (DeLoache & LoBue, 2007).
Infants between 8 and 18 months of age were presented with
pairs of animal films—one of a snake and the other of a different
kind of exotic animal—showing the animals moving slowly
across a screen. The infants oriented preferentially (more rap-
idly and more often) to the snakes.
Two other attributes that distinguish snakes from other ani-
mals are their elongated, limbless bodies and their consequent
ability to coil themselves. Both of these features were present in
the snake photographs used in the research presented here.
(Some of the caterpillar stimuli did not have limbs, but many of
them did.) It may very well have been these features that were
responsible for the more rapid detection of snakes that was
observed.
A question of substantial theoretical importance is the nature
of the mechanism that underlies humans’ rapid detection of
snakes. Do humans have an evolved tendency to rapidly detect
some or all of the physical features possessed by snakes, as
proposed by Seligman (1970), O
¨hman and Mineka (2001, 2003),
and other investigators? An even stronger version of this general
view was recently published by Isbell (2006). In her compre-
hensive analysis of the origin of the human visual system, she
argued that some of its basic properties evolved precisely be-
cause they facilitated the detection of snakes.
Alternatively, does the rapid response to snakes stem from
some more general properties of the human visual system?
Various asymmetries in visual search are well established; for
example, a curved target among rectilinear stimuli visually
‘‘pops out’’ more than a rectilinear target among curves
(Treisman & Gormican, 1988). Perhaps some very low-level
biases of this sort contribute to the rapid visual detection of
snakes.
In conclusion, young children share the propensity of adults
for particularly rapid visual detection of snakes. The existence
of this tendency in such young children lends important support
to theories positing the existence in humans of an evolved bias
for the detection of evolutionarily relevant threat stimuli.
Specifying the precise stimulus attributes that underlie this bias
is a topic for further research.
Acknowledgments—We gratefully thank Themba Carr, Chris-
tina Danko, Joseph Romano, and Catherine Thrasher for valuable
assistance conducting this research; Dennis Proffitt for help with
equipment; and Evan Rappoport for programming.
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(RECEIVED 5/1/07; REVISION ACCEPTED 9/6/07)
Volume 19—Number 3 289
Vanessa LoBue and Judy S. DeLoache
... This result is incongruent with previous studies reporting impairments in ASD only when processing negative information (Ashwin et al., 2006;Enticott et al., 2014;Lartseva et al., 2014aLartseva et al., , 2014b. The evolutionary adaptation to discern and avoid threatening events and objects (Lobue & DeLoache, 2008) may explain why children and adolescents with ASD in our study performed similarly to the TD group in terms of spontaneous attention. In contrast, adults with ASD failed to detect negative valence with implicit instructions (Lartseva et al., 2014a(Lartseva et al., , 2014b. ...
Article
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Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulties in understanding emotional language, but little research has discussed the developmental course of the processing of emotional words in the clinical population. Previous studies have revealed distinct processing for emotion-label (e.g., happiness) and emotion-laden (e.g., birthday) words in typically developing (TD) children and adolescents. Extending these findings, the study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to explore the processing of these two types of emotional words in children and adolescents with ASD. The stimuli included two-character Chinese words with factors of word type (emotion-label versus emotion-laden) and valence (positive versus negative). The participants were 11 to 14-year-old children and adolescents with ASD (N = 23) and age-matched TD peers (N = 23). They categorized emotion valence for words while their brain responses were recorded. Both the TD and the ASD groups exhibited emotional processing for all emotional words across the N400 and late positivity component (LPC). The emotional processing was modulated by word type but varied with group and valence. A trend for group differences was observed in processing positive words at 500–600 ms. In particular, the emotion effects of positive emotion-label words were positively correlated with social dysfunction across all participants. These findings suggested that children and adolescents with ASD have a selective impairment in understanding emotional concepts from language. The ERP measurements may reflect atypical emotional word processing for individuals with higher autistic severity in positive valence contexts.
... Among these hunters, sightings or images of snakes evoke significant anxiety and fear in many individuals, suggesting that snakes may have been a particularly salient threat to primate survival in the past (Isbell, 2006). Many behavioral studies have reported that humans and monkeys detect snakes faster than they detect other animals or plants (LoBue and DeLoache, 2008;Masataka et al., 2010;Kawai and Koda, 2016), and that monkeys who have no experience seeing snakes before tend to avoid snake models (Weiss et al., 2015). These findings suggest that primates have evolved to quickly detect and instinctively avoid snakes. ...
Article
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To survive in nature, it is crucial for animals to promptly and appropriately respond to visual information, specifically to animacy cues that pose a threat. The subcortical visual pathway is thought to be implicated in the processing of visual information necessary for these responses. In primates, this pathway consists of retina-superior colliculus-pulvinar-amygdala, functioning as a visual pathway that bypasses the geniculo-striate system (retina-lateral geniculate nucleus-primary visual cortex). In this mini review, we summarize recent neurophysiological studies that have revealed neural responses to threatening animacy cues, namely snake images, in different parts of the subcortical visual pathway and closely related brain regions in primates. The results of these studies provide new insights on (1) the role of the subcortical visual pathway in innate cognitive mechanisms for predator recognition that are evolutionarily conserved, and (2) the possible role of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in the development of fear conditioning to cues that should be instinctively avoided based on signals from the subcortical visual pathway, as well as their function in excessive aversive responses to animacy cues observed in conditions such as ophidiophobia (snake phobia).
... Although there is an apparent contradiction between children's initial fascination with snakes and the fear response common in adults, studies indicate that both groups have a perceptual predisposition to notice the presence of these reptiles. Children and adults can quickly identify features that suggest the presence of snakes, such as curled shapes or attacking positions, more quickly than other elements of nature (LoBue et al. 2010;LoBue and DeLoache 2008), such as flowers and mushrooms (LoBue and Adolph 2019; Masataka et al. 2010), even leading to the misidentification of other animals with serpentiform characteristics (Lima-Santos et al. 2020). In addition, there is an intense neural response to these animals (Bertels et al. 2020). ...
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This short review explores the intricate interplay between human emotions towards different animal species. It delves into the contrasting feelings we harbor towards appealing animals like pandas and our aversion towards others like cockroaches. This study uncovers how biophilia and biophobia, deeply rooted in our evolutionary past, shape our reactions to various species. We also examined the role of the Behavioral Immune System (BIS) in aversion to pathogen-carrying arthropods, the impact of educational interventions on changing attitudes toward wildlife, and the influence of animation on human memory and attention. We emphasize the significance of understanding these psychological mechanisms in conservation strategies. We highlight how the evolutionary naturalist mind, influenced by ancestral threats and contemporary challenges, is pivotal to fostering a more harmonious coexistence with nature. This short review illuminates the intrinsic connection between human emotions and evolutionary history, particularly regarding our interactions with the animal world. Unraveling the deep-seated reasons behind our affinity for certain species and aversion to others provides vital insights for designing effective conservation strategies. Understanding these evolutionary psychological mechanisms is not just important; it is crucial in fostering positive attitudes towards wildlife, which is paramount for biodiversity conservation.
... An argument in favor of attentional effects of intrinsic relevance can be found in a meta-analysis that reports consistent attentional capture by different classes of intrinsically pleasant stimuli, such as erotic stimuli (Pool et al., 2016). Additionally, several studies revealed an attentional capture by intrinsically unpleasant stimuli such as those representing evolutionary threats (e.g., snake or spider; Fox et al., 2007;LoBue & DeLoache, 2008;Rosa et al., 2014). In sum, the attentional effects of intrinsic relevance could be integrated into the goal-directed definition of emotional attention regarding the assumed adaptive purpose of emotional attention. ...
Preprint
Recent research on emotional attention supports the goal-directed hypothesis, which suggests that attentional capture is influenced by the impact of stimuli on goal attainment (e.g., goal-conducive or evitable goal-obstructive stimuli). However, this hypothesis overlooks the role of intrinsic relevance, i.e., the general pleasantness or unpleasantness nature of stimuli. The Component Process Model (CPM) predicts combined effects of intrinsic and goal relevances on attention. This was supported by results evidencing attentional capture by stimuli that are goal-conducive and pleasant or unpleasant. However, the CPM does not address attentional capture by intrinsically relevant stimuli that inevitably obstruct goals. Such goal-obstructive stimuli could cancel or unalter the attentional capture by intrinsic stimuli. The present study aimed to extend CPM predictions. Specifically, attentional capture for intrinsically relevant versus neutral stimuli was compared based on whether they were goal-independent, goal-conducive, or inevitably goal-obstructive. To this end, participants performed an induction task endowing goal relevance to stimuli, in parallel with a dot-probe task. The results showed that when stimuli were goal-independent, attention was captured by intrinsically relevant stimuli compared to neutral stimuli. However, once stimuli were goal-dependent, attentional capture was solely guided by the goal relevance associated with stimuli. Indeed, only stimuli associated with goal conduction captured attention. These findings are discussed considering the current influential definitions of emotional attention.
... He showed that female infants have different emotional processing compared to male infants and can easily associate fearful schematic faces with fear-relevant stimuli, making them more aware of signals associated with possible threats. This associative learning in infancy can provide insights into the evolved psychological mechanisms of adults and explain the more negative responses in females than males toward snakes (LoBue & DeLoache, 2008). On the other hand, several studies have indicated that females showed higher support for wildlife conservation than males (Czech et al., 2001;Yang et al., 2010), attributed to their higher levels of empathy and compassion (Benenson et al., 2021;Hopwood et al., 2023) and stronger emotional connection to nature (Geng et al., 2015;Davidov et al., 2023). ...
Article
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Habitat destruction and snake persecution are the leading causes of the decline of snake populations worldwide, highlighting the need to formulate scientifically robust conservation management plans that incorporate an understanding of local public attitudes toward snakes. We conducted an in-person survey of 968 residents of Maguindanao Provinces, Mindanao Island, Philippines, to investigate attitudes toward snakes and assess the effects of knowledge about snakes, worldviews, and demographic characteristics on the support for snake conservation. Survey participants were primarily intolerant of and aversive to snakes but generally supported their conservation. Additionally, they were knowledgeable about the behavior of snakes, and shared either highly moralistic or dominionistic worldviews of nature, while most did not believe in folklore traditions. High levels of knowledge about the behavior of snakes, positive folkloric beliefs, high tolerance and low aversion to the presence of snakes, and moralistic worldviews positively affected support for snake conservation. Female participants were less tolerant and more averse to snakes than males. Participants with higher levels of education were more tolerant and supportive of snake conservation than those with little or no education. Farmers were less supportive of snake conservation than non-farmers. Our survey results provide important information to understand how cognitions, folklore, and demographics influence snake conservation on an island in the Philippines. This information may be valuable to government agencies and various stakeholders that could use it to design effective strategies for promoting snake conservation in the country, or other countries with similar societal systems and cultures.
Article
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Twenty years ago, Öhman and Mineka's publication “The Malicious Serpent” emphasized the selective pressure ancestral reptiles would have on early mammals’ visual system, specifically the development of a set of subcortical structures that would provide snake-like images privileged access to the amygdala. This process would occur automatically and allows for quick defensive reactions. Based on criticisms directed to the snake detection research, we created five questions that guided the discussion in this review. Evidence suggests the existence of a set of subcortical structures that promote prompt detection of snakes and sustained attention, but difficulties arise due to the complex interconnectivity of cortical and subcortical structures and multiple threat responses. Gaps in the research are identified as potential for future investigation.
Article
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A series of four studies systematically investigated the boundary conditions of the shame–concealment/pride–exposure relationship through an experimental paradigm. Experiment 1 developed an experimental procedure to assess the shame/pride–concealment/exposure relationship. Shame and pride were induced by randomly assigning participants to either low or high fictitious IQ score conditions, followed by an assessment of concealment and exposure behaviors. The results suggested a strong relationship between failure and concealment, as well as between success and exposure behaviors, a finding that was replicated in the subsequent three experiments. Experiment 2 examined the sensitivity of the shame–concealment relationship to changes in social status by manipulating the relevance of those to whom IQ scores would be disclosed. The results suggested weak to moderate evidence for the effect of status relevance on the shame–concealment relationship. Experiment 3 investigated whether concealment was specific to IQ scores or generalized to other types of information. Moderate evidence was found for the generalization of concealment beyond IQ scores. Experiment 4 distinguished between the effects of receiving a low/high score, the disclosure of the score, and the anticipation of its disclosure on shame feelings and concealment behavior. Results suggested moderate support for the effect of receiving the score on the elicitation of shame and concealment, with inconclusive support for the effect of disclosure compared to anticipated disclosure. The relevance of these results to theories of shame and pride, intra- and interpersonal determinants, and a functional perspective on emotions is discussed.
Article
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Participants searched for discrepant fear-relevant pictures (snakes or spiders) in grid-pattern arrays of fear-irrelevant pictures belonging to the same category (flowers or mushrooms) and vice versa. Fear-relevant pictures were found more quickly than fear-irrelevant ones. Fear-relevant, but not fear-irrelevant, search was unaffected by the location of the target in the display and by the number of distractors, which suggests parallel search for fear-relevant targets and serial search for fear-irrelevant targets. Participants specifically fearful of snakes but not spiders (or vice versa) showed facilitated search for the feared objects but did not differ from controls in search for nonfeared fear-relevant or fear-irrelevant, targets. Thus, evolutionary relevant threatening stimuli were effective in capturing attention, and this effect was further facilitated if the stimulus was emotionally provocative.
Article
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An evolved module for fear elicitation and fear learning with 4 characteristics is proposed. (a) The fear module is preferentially activated in aversive contexts by stimuli that are fear relevant in an evolutionary perspective. (b) Its activation to such stimuli is automatic. (c) It is relatively impenetrable to cognitive control. (d) It originates in a dedicated neural circuitry, centered on the amygdala. Evidence supporting these propositions is reviewed from conditioning studies, both in humans and in monkeys; illusory correlation studies; studies using unreportable stimuli; and studies from animal neuroscience. The fear module is assumed to mediate an emotional level of fear learning that is relatively independent and dissociable from cognitive learning of stimulus relationships.
Article
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That all events are equally associable and obey common laws is a central assumption of general process learning theory. A continuum of preparedness is defined which holds that organisms are prepared to associate certain events, unprepared for some, and contraprepared for others. A review of data from the traditional learning paradigms shows that the assumption of equivalent associability is false. Examples from experiments in classical conditioning, instrumental training, discrimination training, and avoidance training support the assumption. Language acquisition and the functional autonomy of motives are also viewed using the preparedness continuum. It is speculated that the laws of learning themselves may vary with the preparedness of the organism for the association and that different physiological and cognitive mechanisms may covary with the dimension. (2 p. ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Why are snakes such a common target of fear? One current view is that snake fear is one of several innate fears that emerge spontaneously. Another is that humans have an evolved predisposition to learn to fear snakes. In the first study reported here, 9- to 10-month-old infants showed no differential spontaneous reaction to films of snakes versus other animals. In the second study, 7- to 18-month-old infants associated snakes with fear: As predicted, they looked longer at films of snakes while listening to a frightened human voice than while listening to a happy voice. In the third study, infants did not look differentially to still photos of snakes and other animals, indicating that movement is crucial to infants' association of snakes with fear. These results offer support for the view that humans have a natural tendency to selectively associate snakes with fear.
Article
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Two experiments examined whether superior observational conditioning of fear occurs in observer rhesus monkeys that watch model monkeys exhibit an intense fear of fear-relevant, as compared with fear-irrelevant, stimuli. In both experiments, videotapes of model monkeys behaving fearfully were spliced so that it appeared that the models were reacting fearfully either to fear-relevant stimuli (toy snakes or a toy crocodile), or to fear-irrelevant stimuli (flowers or a toy rabbit). Observer groups watched one of four kinds of videotapes for 12 sessions. Results indicated that observers acquired a fear of fear-relevant stimuli (toy snakes and toy crocodile), but not of fear-irrelevant stimuli (flowers and toy rabbit). Implications of the present results for the preparedness theory of phobias are discussed.
Article
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A series of search experiments tested detection of targets distinguished from the distractors by differences on a single dimension. Our aim was to use the pattern of search latencies to infer which features are coded automatically in early vision. For each of 12 different dimensions, one or more pairs of contrasting stimuli were tested. Each member of a pair played the role of target in one condition and the role of distractor in the other condition. Targets defined by larger values on the quantitative dimensions of length, number, and contrast, by line curvature, by misaligned orientation, and by values that deviated from a standard or prototypical color or shape were detected easily, whereas targets defined by smaller values on the quantitative dimensions, by straightness, by frame-aligned orientation, and by prototypical colors or shapes required slow and apparently serial search. We interpret the results as evidence that focused attention to single items or to groups is required to reduce background activity when the Weber fraction distinguishing the pooled feature activity with displays containing a target and with displays containing only distractors is too small to allow reliable discrimination. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
As reptiles, snakes may have signified deadly threats in the environment of early mammals. We review findings suggesting that snakes remain special stimuli for humans. Intense snake fear is prevalent in both humans and other primates. Humans and monkeys learn snake fear more easily than fear of most other stimuli through direct or vicarious conditioning. Neither the elicitation nor the conditioning of snake fear in humans requires that snakes be consciously perceived; rather, both processes can occur with masked stimuli. Humans tend to perceive illusory correlations between snakes and aversive stimuli, and their attention is automatically captured by snakes in complex visual displays. Together, these and other findings delineate an evolved fear module in the brain. This module is selectively and automatically activated by once-threatening stimuli, is relatively encapsulated from cognition, and derives from specialized neural circuitry.
Article
describe the emotional phenomena of fear and anxiety from a clinical perspective / review . . . psychophysiological findings, and [provide] an analysis of the stimulus contexts that set the stage for the phenomena of fear and anxiety / the issue here is whether there are several forms of anxiety and fear or whether different manifestations originate from a common source [discuss] theoretical structures that are needed to understand the phenomena of anxiety / the theoretical perspective derives from information-processing psychology emphasizing the nonconscious mechanisms . . . pivotal in understanding fear and anxiety / [discuss] some of the implications of this theoretical perspective / [this] perspective . . . views phobias and panic disorders as physiologically driven, and generalized anxiety disorder as a cognitively driven, with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) at a somewhat intermediate position between the two groups (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
The author has written the present volume both for the layman interested in psychobiology and for the specialist. The volume is essentially a summary of the experiences at the Yale Laboratories of Primate Biology in the qualitative and quantitative observation of chimpanzee behavior, grouped chiefly under the following headings: general description, personality, social behavior, life cycle, sex differences; mentality, perceptual capacity, intelligence, symbols; and care and handling. An epilogue traces the history of the establishment of the Yale colony. Bibliography of 10 pages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Article
Threatening facial expressions can signal the approach of someone or something potentially dangerous. Past research has established that adults have an attentional bias for angry faces, visually detecting their presence more quickly than happy or neutral faces. Two new findings are reported here. First, evidence is presented that young children share this attentional bias. In five experiments, young children and adults were asked to find a picture of a target face among an array of eight distracter faces. Both age groups detected threat-relevant faces--angry and frightened--more rapidly than non-threat-relevant faces (happy and sad). Second, evidence is presented that both adults and children have an attentional bias for negative stimuli overall. All negative faces were detected more quickly than positive ones in both age groups. As the first evidence that young children exhibit the same superior detection of threatening facial expressions as adults, this research provides important support for the existence of an evolved attentional bias for threatening stimuli.