title: When danger lurks in the background: attentional capture by animal fear-relevant distractors is specific and selectively enhanced by animal fear.
abstract: Across 2 experiments, a new experimental procedure was used to investigate attentional capture by animal fear-relevant stimuli. In Experiment 1 (N=34), unselected participants were slower to detect a neutral target animal in the presence of a spider than a cockroach distractor and in the presence of a snake than a large lizard distractor. This result confirms that phylogenetically fear-relevant animals capture attention specifically and to a larger extent than do non-fear-relevant animals. In Experiment 2 (N=86), detection of a neutral target animal was slowed more in the presence of a feared fear-relevant distractor (e.g., a snake for snake-fearful participants) than in presence of a not-feared fear-relevant distractor (e.g., a spider for snake-fearful participants). These results indicate preferential attentional capture that is specific to phylogenetically fear-relevant stimuli and is selectively enhanced in individuals who fear these animals.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia. o.lipp@psy.uq.edu.au
authors.forename: Ottmar V
authors.initials: OV
authors.lastname: Lipp
authors.forename: Allison M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Waters
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D000818:Animals; D001007:Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology; D001288:Attention; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires