Attentional orienting to biologically fear-relevant stimuli: data from eye tracking using the continual alternation flicker paradigm

Abstract

Snakes are thought as fear-relevant stimuli (biologically prepared to be associated withfear) which can lead to an enhanced attentional capture when compared fear-irrelevantstimuli. Inherent limitations related to the key-press behaviour might be bypassed with themeasurement of eye movements, since they are more closely related to attentional processesthan reaction times. An eye tracking technique was combined with the flicker paradigm intwo studies. A sample of university students was gathered. In both studies, an instruction todetect changes between the pair of scenes was given. Attentional orienting for the changingelement in the scene was analyzed, as well the role of fear of snakes as a moderatorvariable. The results for both studies revealed a significant shorter time to first fixation forsnake stimuli when compared to control stimuli. A facilitating effect of fear of snakes wasalso found for snakes, presenting the highly fear participants a shorter a time to firstfixation for snake stimuli when compared to low-feared participants. The results are in linewith current research that supports the advantage of snakes to grab attention due their evobiologicalsignificance.