Some animal specific fears are more specific than others: Evidence from attention and emotion measures

• Published in: Behaviour research and therapy Vol. 47; no. 12; pp. 1032 - 1042
• Main Authors: Soares, Sandra C., Esteves, Francisco, Lundqvist, Daniel, Öhman, Arne
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01-12-2009; Elsevier; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Affectivity. Emotion; Animal fear; Animals; Araneae; Attention; Biological and medical sciences; Emotional ratings; Emotions; Experimental psychology; Experiments; Fear; Fear & phobias; Fear - psychology; Female; Fruit; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Medicin och hälsovetenskap; Methods; Perceptual load; Personality. Affectivity; Phobic Disorders - psychology; Photic Stimulation - methods; Psychological tests; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reaction Time; Snakes; Spiders; Visual Perception; Visual search; Animal fear; Perceptual load; Visual search; Emotional ratings; Human; Affect affectivity; Attention; Cognition; Emotion emotionality; Experimental study; Mental load; Fear; Animal; Vision; Young adult; Perception; Woman
• ISSN: 0005-7967; 1873-622X; 1873-622X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.brat.2009.07.022

Using a visual search methodology we investigated the effect of feared animal stimuli on attention. Our results confirmed the important role of emotion on attention. All participants detected fear-relevant stimuli (snakes and spiders) faster than neutral (mushrooms) ones against a background of fruits. In addition, spider fearful participants were sensitized specifically to detect their feared stimulus (spiders), compared to their fear-relevant but non-feared (snakes) and neutral stimuli. However, for participants fearful of snakes there was no significant difference in detection latencies between the feared (snakes) and the fear-relevant but non-feared animal stimuli (spiders). The results from the attention task were mirrored in the emotional ratings, which showed that spider fear was highly specific, whereas snake fear was associated with a more generalized enhanced evaluation of all negative stimuli.