Blurring attenuates the early posterior negativity in response to snake stimuli

Beligiannis, Nick; Strien, Jan W. Van

doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2019.09.002

Cited by 5 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…The participants' valence and arousal ratings for the three picture categories were comparable with the previous research, as were the similar snake and spider fear scores (Beligiannis and Van Strien 2019;Van Strien et al 2014a, b). The arousal ratings indicated that close-up pictures of both birds and spiders were more arousing than the medium shots, whereas there was no condition effect for snake pictures.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

“…The snake skin’s scales and patterns may constitute such local features and we do expect them to be reflected in high spatial frequencies, but that may be dependent on the characteristics of the stimuli employed. Spatial frequency analyses from the previous research seem to support this claim (Beligiannis and Van Strien 2019 ; Grassini et al 2019b ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 80%

“…Signed informed consent was obtained at the start of the experimental session. The present research was part of a larger study in which this sample participated (see also Beligiannis and Van Strien 2019 ). The study was approved by the local ethics committee of the Department of Psychology, Education and Child Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a recent study, Beligiannis and Van Strien ( 2019 ) explored the role of high spatial frequency attributes in snakes. They presented participants with blurred (containing mainly low-spatial frequencies) and non-blurred (containing all spatial frequencies) pictures of snakes, spiders and birds and measured their EPN amplitudes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The selection of snakes and spiders as aversive stimuli is in line with previous research in which both snake and spider stimuli were found to be more readily associated with aversive unconditioned stimuli as compared to non-fear stimuli, such as flowers or mushrooms (Öhman and Soares 1998 ; Öhman and Mineka 2001 ), due to their supposed evolutionary “preparedness” (Mineka and Öhman 2002 ; Seligman 1971 ). Furthermore, birds have emerged to be reliable neutral (fear irrelevant) stimuli in RSVP research, as in many studies they exhibit the lowest arousal ratings and smallest EPN amplitudes as compared to snake and spider stimuli (e.g., Van Strien et al 2014a , b ; Beligiannis and Van Strien 2019 ; Van Strien and Isbell 2017 ). Based on the previous research, we expected higher EPN amplitudes in response to snake pictures when compared with spider and bird pictures.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Early posterior negativity in humans to pictures of snakes and spiders: effects of proximity

Beligiannis

Strien

2020

Exp Brain Res

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Snakes have proven to drive early attentional capture due to their evolutionary importance, as reflected by the early posterior negativity (EPN). The EPN snake effect might be partly driven by the proximity of the animal. In this study, by employing full-body (medium shot) and head-focused (close-up) pictures, we investigated whether the relative nearness (proximity) of the animal on the picture affects the snake EPN effect. We presented thirty participants with medium shot and close-up snake, spider and bird pictures in a rapid serial presentation paradigm at a presentation rate of three frames per second. We extracted the mean EPN activity from the 225–330 ms time frame after stimulus onset at the parietal–occipital cluster (PO3, O1, Oz, O2, PO4). The results indicate enhanced EPN for snake pictures as compared to spider and bird pictures. In addition, medium-shot snake pictures elicited higher EPN amplitudes than close-up snake pictures, suggesting that the EPN is higher when local, high spatial frequency attributes are visible. Spatial frequency analysis of the stimuli indicated that medium-shot snake pictures possess more power in the high spatial frequency bands, compared to medium-shot spider and bird pictures.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 80%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%