Attentional, emotional, and behavioral response toward spiders, scorpions, crabs, and snakes provides no evidence for generalized fear between spiders and scorpions.

ABSTRACT: Spiders are among the animals evoking the highest fear and disgust and such a complex response might have been formed throughout human evolution. Ironically, most spiders do not present a serious threat, so the evolutionary explanation remains questionable. We suggest that other chelicerates, such as scorpions, have been potentially important in the formation and fixation of the spider-like category. In this eye-tracking study, we focused on the attentional, behavioral, and emotional response to images of spiders, scorpions, snakes, and crabs used as task-irrelevant distractors. Results show that spider-fearful subjects were selectively distracted by images of spiders and crabs. Interestingly, these stimuli were not rated as eliciting high fear contrary to the other animals. We hypothesize

SUBMITTER: Landova E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10684562 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature