title: Viewing images of snakes accelerates making judgements of their colour in humans: red snake effect as an instance of 'emotional Stroop facilitation'.
abstract: One of the most prevalent current psychobiological notions about human behaviour and emotion suggests that prioritization of threatening stimuli processing induces deleterious effects on task performance. In order to confirm its relevancy, 108 adults and 25 children were required to name the colour of images of snakes and flowers, using the pictorial emotional Stroop paradigm. When reaction time to answer the colour of each stimulus was measured, its value was found to decrease when snake images were presented when compared with when flower images were presented. Thus, contrary to the expectation from previous emotional Stroop paradigm research, emotions evoked by viewing images of snakes as a biologically relevant threatening stimulus were found to be likely to exert a facilitating rather than interfering effect on making judgements of their colour.
authors.affiliation: Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University , Kanrin, Inuyama, Aichi, Japan.
authors.forename: Masahiro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shibasaki
authors.affiliation: Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University , Kanrin, Inuyama, Aichi, Japan.
authors.forename: Tomoko
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Isomura
authors.affiliation: Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University , Kanrin, Inuyama, Aichi, Japan.
authors.forename: Nobuo
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Masataka
keywords: colour perception; emotional Stroop interference; enhancement of perception; pictorial Stroop paradigm; snake fear