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Enhanced early visual processing in response to snake and trypophobic stimuli
BACKGROUND: Trypophobia refers to aversion to clusters of holes. We investigated whether trypophobic stimuli evoke augmented early posterior negativity (EPN). METHODS: Twenty-four participants filled out a trypophobia questionnaire and watched the random rapid serial presentation of 450 trypophobic...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5930515/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29720255 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40359-018-0235-2 |
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author | Van Strien, Jan W. Van der Peijl, Manja K. |
author_facet | Van Strien, Jan W. Van der Peijl, Manja K. |
author_sort | Van Strien, Jan W. |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Trypophobia refers to aversion to clusters of holes. We investigated whether trypophobic stimuli evoke augmented early posterior negativity (EPN). METHODS: Twenty-four participants filled out a trypophobia questionnaire and watched the random rapid serial presentation of 450 trypophobic pictures, 450 pictures of poisonous animals, 450 pictures of snakes, and 450 pictures of small birds (1800 pictures in total, at a rate of 3 pictures/s). The EPN was scored as the mean activity at occipital electrodes (PO3, O1, Oz, PO4, O2) in the 225–300 ms time window after picture onset. RESULTS: The EPN was significantly larger for snake pictures than for the other categories, and significantly larger for trypophobic pictures and poisonous animal pictures than for bird pictures. Remarkably, the scores on the trypophobia questionnaire were correlated with the EPN amplitudes for trypophobic pictures at the occipital cluster (r = −.46, p = .025). CONCLUSIONS: The outcome for the EPN indicates that snakes, and to a somewhat lesser extent trypophobic stimuli and poisonous animals, trigger early automatic visual attention. This supports the notion that the aversion that is induced by trypophobic stimuli reflects ancestral threat and has survival value. The possible influence of the spectral composition of snake and trypophobic stimuli on the EPN is discussed. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5930515 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-59305152018-05-09 Enhanced early visual processing in response to snake and trypophobic stimuli Van Strien, Jan W. Van der Peijl, Manja K. BMC Psychol Research Article BACKGROUND: Trypophobia refers to aversion to clusters of holes. We investigated whether trypophobic stimuli evoke augmented early posterior negativity (EPN). METHODS: Twenty-four participants filled out a trypophobia questionnaire and watched the random rapid serial presentation of 450 trypophobic pictures, 450 pictures of poisonous animals, 450 pictures of snakes, and 450 pictures of small birds (1800 pictures in total, at a rate of 3 pictures/s). The EPN was scored as the mean activity at occipital electrodes (PO3, O1, Oz, PO4, O2) in the 225–300 ms time window after picture onset. RESULTS: The EPN was significantly larger for snake pictures than for the other categories, and significantly larger for trypophobic pictures and poisonous animal pictures than for bird pictures. Remarkably, the scores on the trypophobia questionnaire were correlated with the EPN amplitudes for trypophobic pictures at the occipital cluster (r = −.46, p = .025). CONCLUSIONS: The outcome for the EPN indicates that snakes, and to a somewhat lesser extent trypophobic stimuli and poisonous animals, trigger early automatic visual attention. This supports the notion that the aversion that is induced by trypophobic stimuli reflects ancestral threat and has survival value. The possible influence of the spectral composition of snake and trypophobic stimuli on the EPN is discussed. BioMed Central 2018-05-02 /pmc/articles/PMC5930515/ /pubmed/29720255 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40359-018-0235-2 Text en © The Author(s). 2018 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Van Strien, Jan W. Van der Peijl, Manja K. Enhanced early visual processing in response to snake and trypophobic stimuli |
title | Enhanced early visual processing in response to snake and trypophobic stimuli |
title_full | Enhanced early visual processing in response to snake and trypophobic stimuli |
title_fullStr | Enhanced early visual processing in response to snake and trypophobic stimuli |
title_full_unstemmed | Enhanced early visual processing in response to snake and trypophobic stimuli |
title_short | Enhanced early visual processing in response to snake and trypophobic stimuli |
title_sort | enhanced early visual processing in response to snake and trypophobic stimuli |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5930515/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29720255 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40359-018-0235-2 |
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