Involuntary protection against dermatosis: A preliminary observation on trypophobia

Abstract

ObjectiveTrypophobia refers to the intense negative emotions evoked by exposure to repeated visual patterns like a honeycomb. We propose a cognitive mechanism that can explain why such negative emotions are triggered by trypophobic objects, primarily through automatic and involuntary avoidance of skin diseases, which is also called as the Involuntary Protection Against Dermatosis (IPAD) hypothesis.ResultsWe asked 856 participants to evaluate the discomfort evoked by trypophobic images and to report their past and current skin-related medical problems. Results showed that participants with a history of skin problems rated the pictures as evoking high discomfort as compared to those without skin problems. We conducted another survey to replicate the original survey using additional 690 participants, which confirmed the reliability of the current findings. The current study presents preliminary observational data that supports the IPAD hypothesis and suggests ways to reduce maladaptive emotional reactions toward trypophobic objects.

Object Clusters or Spectral Energy? Assessing the Relative Contributions of Image Phase and Amplitude Spectra to Trypophobia

“…Kupfer and Le (2017) found that trypophobic individuals reported more disease-relevant pathogen avoidance remarks in open-ended questions when viewing trypophobic images. Yamada and Sasaki (2017) also showed that individuals with previous skin-related medical problems reported higher discomfort ratings towards trypophobic images compared to those who have no history of skin disease. Two other recent studies found greater unpleasantness ratings for faces of humans and animals when a trypophobic image (lotus seedpod) was superimposed on them compared to the trypophobic image viewed in isolation or when viewing the trypophobic image on inverted faces (Furuno et al, 2017;2018).…”

The hole story: an event-related potential study with trypophobic stimuli

“…The authors noted that contagious skin diseases have similar visual patterns like trypophobic stimuli. Yamada and Sasaki (2017) found that images with clusters of holes elicited greater discomfort in individuals with a history of skin-related medical problems than in those without such problems. In this sense, trypophobic tendencies might index an elevated intuitive sense of what can cause (skin) infection.…”

“…The artificial combination of skin and holes creates the impression of a pathological skin condition. Yamada and Sasaki (2017) proposed the 'involuntary protection against dermatosis' (IPAD) hypothesis of trypophobia. The authors noted that contagious skin diseases have similar visual patterns like trypophobic stimuli.…”

Trypophobia: What Do We Know So Far? A Case Report and Comprehensive Review of the Literature

“…More recently, Yamada and Sasaki ( 22 ) proposed a hypothesis based on the results obtained by previous studies. They argued that people experience negative emotions when looking at trypophobic objects because they probably associate their surfaces with skin diseases.…”