Effects of gaze manipulation on subjective evaluation of neutral and phobia-relevant stimuli. A comment on Drake's (1987) 'Effects of Gaze Manipulation on Aesthetic Judgments: Hemisphere Priming of Affect'.
Using neutral stimuli (mushrooms and flowers) and phobia-relevant stimuli (snakes and spiders), the present investigation examined the effect of gaze shifts on subjective evaluation of stimuli in female subjects (N = 29). One group of subjects had to orient to the right, whereas the other group had to orient to the left in order to see the stimuli. When left-handed subjects were excluded from the analysis, the results showed that subjects in the 'orient right' group gave a significantly more positive evaluation than subjects in the 'orient left' group. The results provide a replication of the phenomenon described by Drake (1987).
Merckelbach
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van Oppen
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D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D001143:Arousal; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006801:Humans; D012911:Snakes; D013112:Spiders