Deconstructing the snake: The relative roles of perception, cognition, and emotion on threat detection

Emotion

Volumn 14, Issue 4, 2014, Pages 701-711

  LoBue, Vanessa ^a  

^a RUTGERS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Attention; Detection; Snakes; Spiders; Threat

Indexed keywords

ADULT; ARTICLE; COGNITION; EMOTION; EMOTIONALITY; FEMALE; HUMAN; HUMAN EXPERIMENT; LATENT PERIOD; MALE; PERCEPTION; RESPONSE TIME; SNAKE; TASK PERFORMANCE; THREAT;

ANIMALS; COGNITION; CUES; FEAR; FEMALE; HUMANS; MALE; PERCEPTION; SIGNAL DETECTION, PSYCHOLOGICAL; SNAKES; YOUNG ADULT;

EID: 84905189116     PISSN: 15283542     EISSN: 19311516     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1037/a0035898     Document Type: Article

References (80)

1. Baayen, R. H., Davidson, D. J., & Bates, D. M. (2008). Mixed-effects modeling with crossed random effects for subjects and items. Journal of Memory and Language, 59, 390-412. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2007.12.005.
2. Bagiella, E., Sloan, R. P., & Heitjan, D. F. (2000). Mixed-effects models in psychophysiology. Psychophysiology, 37, 13-20. doi:10.1111/1469-8986.3710013.
3. Bar, M., & Neta, M. (2006). Humans prefer curved visual objects. Psychological Science, 17, 645-648. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01759.x.
4. Bar, M., & Neta, M. (2007). Visual elements of subjective preference modulate amygdala activation. Neuropsychologia, 45, 2191-2200. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.03.008.
5. Beaver, J. D., Mogg, K., & Bradley, B. P. (2005). Emotional conditioning to masked stimuli and modulation of visuospatial attention. Emotion, 5, 67-79. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.5.1.67.
6. Becker, S. I., Horstmann, G., & Remington, R. W. (2011). Perceptual grouping, not emotion, accounts for search asymmetries with schematic faces. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 37, 1739-1757. doi:10.1037/a0024665.
7. Blanchette, I. (2006). Snakes, spiders, guns, and syringes: How specific are evolutionary constraints on the detection of threatening stimuli? Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 59, 1484-1504. doi:10.1080/02724980543000204.
8. Brosch, T., & Sharma, D. (2005). The role of fear-relevant stimuli in visual search: A comparison of phylogenetic and ontogenetic stimuli. Emotion, 5, 360-364. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.5.3.360.
9. Byrne, A., & Eysenck, M. (1995). Trait anxiety, anxious mood, and threat detection. Cognition and Emotion, 9, 549-562. doi:10.1080/02699939508408982.
10. Cacioppo, J. T., Priester, J. R., & Berntson, G. G. (1993). Rudimentary determinants of attitudes: II. Arm flexion and extension have differential effects on attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 5-17. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.65.1.5.
11. Calvo, M. G., Avero, P., & Lundqvist, D. (2006). Facilitated detection of angry faces: Initial orienting and processing efficiency. Cognition and Emotion, 20, 785-811. doi:10.1080/02699930500465224.
12. Calvo, M. G., & Marrero, H. (2009). Visual search of emotional faces: The role of affective content and featural distinctiveness. Cognition & Emotion, 23, 782-806. doi:10.1080/02699930802151654.
13. Calvo, M. G., & Nummenmaa, L. (2008). Detection of emotional faces: Salient physical features guide effective visual search. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 137, 471-494. doi:10.1037/a0012771.
14. Cave, K. R., & Batty, M. J. (2006). From searching for features to searching for threat: Drawing the boundary between preattentive and attentive vision. Visual Cognition, 14, 629-646. doi:10.1080/13506280500193107.
15. Chen, M., & Bargh, J. A. (1999). Consequences of automatic evaluation: Immediate behavioral predispositions to approach or avoid the stimulus. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 215-224. doi:10.1177/0146167299025002007.
16. Coelho, C. M., Cloete, S., & Wallis, G. (2010). The face-in-the-crowd effect: When angry faces are just cross(es). Journal of Vision, 10, 1-14. doi:10.1167/10.1.7.
17. DeLoache, J., & LoBue, V. (2009). The narrow fellow in the grass: Human infants associate snakes and fear. Developmental Science, 12, 201-207. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00753.x.
18. Derryberry, D., & Reed, M. A. (2002). Anxiety-related attentional bias and their regulation by attentional control. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 111, 225-236. doi:10.1037/0021-843X.111.2.225.
19. Eastwood, J. D., & Smilek, D. (2005). Functional consequences of perceiving facial expressions of emotion without awareness. Consciousness and Cognition, 14, 565-584. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2005.01.001.
20. Eastwood, J. D., Smilek, D., & Merikle, P. M. (2001). Differential attentional guidance by unattended faces expressing positive and negative emotion. Perception & Psychophysics, 63, 1004-1013. doi:10.3758/BF03194519.
21. Eastwood, J. D., Smilek, D., & Merikle, P. M. (2003). Negative facial expression captures attention and disrupts performance. Perception & Psychophysics, 65, 352-358. doi:10.3758/BF03194566.
22. Esteves, F. (1999). Attentional bias to emotional facial expressions. European Review of Applied Psychology, 49, 91-97.
23. Fenske, M. J., & Eastwood, J. D. (2003). Modulation of focused attention by faces expressing emotion: Evidence from flanker tasks. Emotion, 3, 327-343. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.3.4.327.
24. Field, A. P. (2006a). The behavioral inhibition system and the verbal information pathway to children's fears. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 115, 742-752. doi:10.1037/0021-843X.115.4.742.
25. Field, A. P. (2006b). Watch out for the beast: Fear information and attentional bias in children. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 35, 431-439. doi:10.1207/s15374424jccp3503_8.
26. Flykt, A. (2005). Visual search with biological threat stimuli: Accuracy, reactions times, and heart rate changes. Emotion, 5, 349-353. doi: 10.1037/1528-3542.5.3.349.
27. Flykt, A. (2006). Preparedness for action: Responding to the snake in the grass. The American Journal of Psychology, 119, 29-43. doi:10.2307/20445317.
28. Flykt, A., & Caldara, R. (2006). Tracking fear in snake and spider fearful participants during visual search: A multi-response domain study. Cognition and Emotion, 20, 1075-1091. doi:10.1080/02699930500381405.
29. Fox, E., & Damjanovic, L. (2006). The eyes are sufficient to produce a threat superiority effect. Emotion, 6, 534-539. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.6.3.534.
30. Fox, E., Lester, V., Russo, R., Bowles, R., Pichler, A., & Dutton, K. (2000). Facial expressions of emotion: Are angry faces detected more efficiently? Cognition and Emotion, 14, 61-92. doi:10.1080/026999300378996.
31. Fox, E., Russo, R., & Dutton, K. (2002). Attentional bias for threat: Evidence for delayed disengagement from emotional faces. Cognition and Emotion, 16, 355-379. doi:10.1080/02699930143000527.
32. Friedman, R. S., & Forster, J. (2000). The effects of approach and avoidance motor actions on the elements of creative insight. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 477-492. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.79.4.477.
33. Frischen, A., Eastwood, J. D., & Smilek, D. (2008). Visual search for faces with emotional expressions. Psychological Bulletin, 134, 662-676. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.134.5.662.
34. Gilboa-Schechtman, E., Foa, E. B., & Amir, N. (1999). Attentional biases for facial expressions in social phobia: The face-in-the-crowd paradigm. Cognition and Emotion, 13, 305-318. doi:10.1080/026999399379294.
35. Gueorguieva, R., & Krystal, J. (2004). Move over ANOVA: Progress in analyzing repeated-measures data and its reflection in papers published in the Archives of General Psychiatry. Archives of General Psychiatry, 61, 310-317. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.61.3.310.
36. Hansen, C. H., & Hansen, R. D. (1988). Finding the face in the crowd: An anger superiority effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 917-924. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.54.6.917.
37. Hayakawa, S., Kawai, N., & Masataka, N. (2011). The influence of color on snake detection in visual search in human children. Scientific Reports, 1, 1-4. doi:10.1038/srep00080.
38. Horstmann, G. (2009). Visual search for schematic affective faces: Stability and variability of search slopes with different instances. Cognition and Emotion, 23, 355-379. doi:10.1080/02699930801976523.
39. Horstmann, G., Becker, S. I., Bergmann, S., & Burghaus, L. (2010). A reversal of the search asymmetry favouring negative schematic faces. Visual Cognition, 18, 981-1016.
40. Horstmann, G., Heumann, M., & Borgstedt, K. (2006). Flanker effects with faces may depend on perceptual as well as emotional differences. Emotion, 6, 28-39. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.6.1.28.
41. Koster, E. H. W., Crombez, G., Van Damme, S., Verschuere, B., & De Houwer, J. (2004). Does imminent threat capture and hold attention? Emotion, 4, 312-317. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.4.3.312.
42. Larson, C. L., Aronoff, J., & Stearns, J. J. (2007). The shape of threat: Simple geometric forms evoke rapid and sustained capture of attention. Emotion, 7, 526-534. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.7.3.526.
43. Lipp, O. V. (2006). Of snakes and flowers: Does preferential detection of pictures of fear-relevant animals in visual search reflect on fearrelevance? Emotion, 6, 296-308. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.6.2.296.
44. Lipp, O. V., & Derakshan, N. (2005). Attentional bias to pictures of fear-relevant animals in a dot probe task. Emotion, 5, 365-369. doi: 10.1037/1528-3542.5.3.365.
45. Lipp, O. V., Derakshan, N., Waters, A. M., & Logies, S. (2004). Snakes and cats in the flower bed: Fast detection is not specific to pictures of fear-relevant animals. Emotion, 4, 233-250. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.4.3.233.
46. Lipp, O. V., & Waters, A. M. (2007). When danger lurks in the background: Attentional capture by animal fear-relevant distractors is specific and selectively enhanced by animal fear. Emotion, 7, 192-200. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.7.1.192.
47. LoBue, V. (2009). More than just a face in the crowd: Detection of emotional facial expressions in young children and adults. Developmental Science, 12, 305-313. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00767.x.
48. LoBue, V. (2010). And along came a spider: Superior detection of spiders in children and adults. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 107, 59-66. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2010.04.005.
49. LoBue, V. (2013). What are we so afraid of? How early attention shapes our most common fears. Child Development Perspectives, 7, 38-42. doi:10.1111/cdep.12012.
50. LoBue, V., & DeLoache, J. S. (2008). Detecting the snake in the grass: Attention to fear-relevant stimuli by adults and young children. Psychological Science, 19, 284-289. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02081.x.
51. LoBue, V., & DeLoache, J. S. (2010). Superior detection of threat-relevant stimuli in infancy. Developmental Science, 13, 221-228. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2009.00872.x.
52. LoBue, V., & DeLoache, J. S. (2011). What so special about slithering serpents? Children and adults rapidly detect snakes based on their simple features. Visual Cognition, 19, 129-143. doi:10.1080/13506285.2010.522216.
53. LoBue, V., & Larson, C. L. (2010). What makes angry faces look so. angry? Examining visual attention to the shape of threat in children and adults. Visual Cognition, 18, 1165-1178. doi:10.1080/13506281003783675.
54. LoBue, V., & Matthews, K. (2014). The snake in the grass revisited: An experimental comparison of threat detection paradigms. Cognition & Emotion, 28, 22-35.
55. LoBue, V., & Pérez-Edgar, K. (in press). Sensitivity to social and nonsocial threats in temperamentally shy children at-risk for anxiety. Developmental Science.
56. LoBue, V., & Rakison, D. (2013). What we fear most: A developmental advantage for threat-relevant stimuli. Developmental Review, 33, 285-303.
57. LoBue, V., Rakison, D., & DeLoache, J. S. (2010). Threat perception across the lifespan: Evidence for multiple converging pathways. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19, 375-379. doi:10.1177/0963721410388801.
58. Lundqvist, D., Esteves, F., & Öhman, A. (1999). The face of wrath: Critical features for conveying facial threat. Cognition and Emotion, 13, 691-711. doi:10.1080/026999399379041.
59. Lundqvist, D., & Öhman, A. (2005). Emotion regulates attention: The relation between facial configurations, facial emotion, and visual attention. Visual Cognition, 12, 51-84. doi:10.1080/13506280444000085.
60. Masataka, N., Hayakawa, S., & Kawai, N. (2010). Human young children as well as adults demonstrate "superior" rapid snake detection when typical striking posture is displayed by the snake. PLoS ONE, 5, e15122. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0015122.
61. Masataka, N., & Shibasaki, M. (2012). Premenstrual enhancement of snake detection in visual search in healthy women. Scientific Reports, 2, 1-4. doi:10.1038/srep00307.
62. McMenamin, B. W., & Marsolek, C. J. (2013). Can theories of visual representation help to explain asymmetries in amygdala function? Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience, 13, 211-224. doi:10.3758/s13415-012-0139-1.
63. McMenamin, B. W., Radue, J., Trask, J., Huskamp, K., Kersten, D., & Marsolek, C. J. (2012). The diagnosticity of color for emotional objects. Motivation and Emotion, 34, 1-14.
64. Mogg, K., & Bradley, B. P. (2002). Selective orienting of attention to masked threat faces in social anxiety. Behavior Research and Therapy, 40, 1403-1414. doi:10.1016/S0005-7967(02)00017-7.
65. Öhman, A., Flykt, A., & Esteves, F. (2001). Emotion drives attention: Detecting the snake in the grass. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130, 466-478. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.130.3.466.
66. Öhman, A., Lundqvist, D., & Esteves, F. (2001). The face in the crowd revisited: An anger superiority effect with schematic faces. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 381-396. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.80.3.381.
67. Öhman, A., & Mineka, S. (2001). Fears, phobias, and preparedness: Toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning. Psychological Review, 108, 483-522. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.108.3.483.
68. Pishyar, R., Harris, L. M., & Menzies, R. G. (2004). Attentional bias for words and faces in social anxiety. Anxiety, Stress and Coping, 17, 23-36. doi:10.1080/10615800310001601458.
69. Pollak, S. D., & Kistler, D. J. (2002). Early experience is associated with the development of categorical representations for facial expressions of emotion. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 99, 9072-9076. doi:10.1073/pnas.142165999.
70. Purkis, H. M., & Lipp, O. V. (2007). Automatic attention does not equal automatic fear: Preferential attention without implicit valence. Emotion, 7, 314-323. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.7.2.314.
71. Rakison, D. H., & Derringer, J. L. (2008). Do infants possess an evolved spider-detection mechanism? Cognition, 107, 381-393. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2007.07.022.
72. Rottenberg, J., Ray, R. D., & Gross, J. J. (2007). Emotion elicitation using films. In James A. Coan & John J. B. Allen (Eds.), Handbook of emotion elicitation and assessment (pp. 9-28). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
73. Schubo, A., Gendolla, G., Meinecke, C., & Abele, A. E. (2006). Detecting emotional faces and features in a visual search task paradigm: Are faces special? Emotion, 6, 246-256. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.6.2.246.
74. Shibasaki, M., & Kawai, N. (2009). Rapid detection of snakes by Japanese Monkeys (Macaca fuscata): An evolutionarily predisposed visual system. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 123, 131-135. doi:10.1037/a0015095.
75. Soares, S. C., Esteves, F., Lundqvist, D., & Öhman, A. (2009). Some animal specific fears are more specific than others: Evidence from attention and emotion measures. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 47, 1032-1042. doi:10.1016/j.brat.2009.07.022.
76. Tipples, J., Atkinson, A. P., & Young, A. W. (2002). The eyebrow frown: A salient social signal. Emotion, 2, 288-296. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.2.3.288.
77. Tipples, J., Young, A. W., Quinlan, P., Broks, P., & Ellis, A. W. (2002). Searching for threat. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 55, 1007-1026. doi:10.1080/02724980143000659.
78. Treisman, A. M., & Gelade, G. (1980). A feature-integration theory of attention. Cognitive Psychology, 12, 97-136. doi:10.1016/0010-0285(80)90005-5.
79. Williams, M. A., Moss, S. A., Bradshaw, J. L., & Mattingly, J. B. (2005). Look at me, I'm smiling: Visual search for threatening and nonthreatening facial expressions. Visual Cognition, 12, 29-50. doi:10.1080/13506280444000193.
80. Wolfe, J. M., Yee, A., & Friedman-Hill, S. R. (1992). Curvature is a basic feature for visual search tasks. Perception, 21, 465-480. doi:10.1068/pp.210465.