How fear skews our spatial perception

“Fear can alter even basic aspects of how we perceive the world around us,” says psychologist Stella Lourenco.

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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2012

How fear skews our spatial perception

By Carol Clark

That snake heading towards you may be further away than it appears. Fear can skew our perception of approaching objects, causing us to underestimate the distance of a threatening one, finds a study published in Current Biology.

“Our results show that emotion and perception are not fully dissociable in the mind,” says Emory psychologist Stella Lourenco, co-author of the study. “Fear can alter even basic aspects of how we perceive the world around us. This has clear implications for understanding clinical phobias.”

Lourenco conducted the research with Matthew Longo, a psychologist at Birkbeck, University of London.

People generally have a well-developed sense for when objects heading towards them will make contact, including a split-second cushion for dodging or blocking the object, if necessary. The researchers set up an experiment to test the effect of fear on the accuracy of that skill.

Study participants made time-to-collision judgments of images on a computer screen. The images expanded in size over one second before disappearing, to simulate “looming,” an optical pattern used instinctively to judge collision time. The study participants were instructed to gauge when each of the visual stimuli on the computer screen would have collided with them by pressing a button.

The participants tended to underestimate the collision time for images of threatening objects, such as a snake or spider, as compared to non-threatening images, such as a rabbit or butterfly.

The results challenge the traditional view of looming, as a purely optical cue to object approach. “We’re showing that what the object is affects how we perceive looming. If we’re afraid of something, we perceive it as making contact sooner,” Longo says.

“Even more striking,” Lourenco adds, “it is possible to predict how much a participant will underestimate the collision time of an object by assessing the amount of fear they have for that object. The more fearful someone reported feeling of spiders, for example, the more they underestimated time-to-collision for a looming spider. That makes adaptive sense: If an object is dangerous, it’s better to swerve a half-second too soon than a half-second too late.”

The researchers note that it’s unclear whether fear of an object makes the object appear to travel faster, or whether that fear makes the viewer expand their sense of personal space, which is generally about an arm’s length away.

“We’d like to distinguish between these two possibilities in future research. Doing so will allow us to shed insight on the mechanics of basic aspects of spatial perception and the mechanisms underlying particular phobias,” Lourenco says.

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Current Biology

Article in pdf file (for personal use)

PIIS0960982212008780

Threat modulates perception of looming visual stimuli

Eleonora Vagnoni, Stella F. Lourenco and Matthew R. Longo,

1 Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX, UK

2 Department of Psychology, Emory University, 36 Eagle Row, Atlanta, GA 30322, US

Summary

Among the most critical of visual functions is the detection of potentially hazardous or threatening aspects of the environment. For example, objects on a collision course with an observer must be quickly identified to allow sufficient time to prepare appropriate defensive or avoidant responses. Directly approaching objects produce a specific accelerating pattern of optical expansion, known as ‘looming, which in theory exactly specifies time-to-collision independent of object size or distance. Such looming stimuli have been shown to trigger stereotyped defensive responses in both monkeys [1] and human infants [2]. Psychophysical results in adult participants have similarly suggested sensitivity to looming at early stages of visual processing [3]. Such findings indicate specialization of the visual system to detect and react to such ‘looming’ stimuli, and have contributed to the traditional view of looming as a purely optical cue to imminent collision [1]. Here, we investigated whether the semantic content of a looming visual stimulus affects perceived time-to-collision by manipulating its threat value. We show that time-to-collision is underestimated for threatening (snakes and spiders) compared to non-threatening (butterflies and rabbits) stimuli. Further, the magnitude of this effect is correlated with self-reported fear. Our results demonstrate affective modulation of the perception of looming stimuli, and suggest that emotion shapes basic aspects of visual perception.

Threat modulates perception of looming visual stimuli

How fear can make scary objects appear closer than they really are

Strong emotion causes us to underestimate distance of threatening objects

By SIMON TOMLINSON

PUBLISHED: 14:07 GMT, 22 October 2012 | UPDATED: 14:08 GMT, 22 October 2012

Fear makes scary stuff appear to loom (futurity.org)

Ο παρακάτω σύνδεσμος στην Ελληνική γλώσσα δεν είναι προϊόν μετάφρασης

The link below is not a translation of the Emory University news release.

Vita.gr

Ο φόβος αλλοιώνει την αντίληψη του χώρου

Όσο περισσότερο φόβο έχουμε τόσο χειρότερη εκτίμηση κάνουμε όσον αφορά το χώρο και τις αποστάσεις των αντικειμένων. Για την ακρίβεια όταν ο φόβος π.χ., για το φίδι ή την αράχνη που έρχεται προς το μέρος μας είναι μεγάλος, τείνουμε να θεωρούμε πολύ μικρότερη από όσο πραγματικά είναι την απόσταση που μας χωρίζει από αυτό, σύμφωνα με έρευνα που δημοσιεύθηκε στο επιστημονικό περιοδικό Current Biology.
Οι ερευνητές υπέβαλλαν τους συμμετέχοντες σε ένα πείραμα όπου μέσω μιας οθόνης έβλεπαν να τους πλησιάζουν είτε ανώδυνα πλάσματα π.χ., μια πεταλούδα ή ένα κουνέλι, είτε πιο επικίνδυνα όπως π.χ., μια αράχνη ή ένα φίδι. Παράλληλα ,ζήτησαν από τους συμμετέχοντες να εκτιμήσουν το χρόνο της πρόσκρουσης με το εκάστοτε αντικείμενο.

Διαπίστωσαν ότι η εκτίμηση της απόστασης που χώριζε τους συμμετέχοντες από το εκάστοτε αντικείμενο ήταν πολύ μικρότερη της πραγματικής όταν το φοβούνταν. Οι ερευνητές συμπεραίνουν ότι το συναίσθημα και η αντίληψη του χώρου είναι αλληλένδετα στο μυαλό μας. Ο φόβος μπορεί να αλλοιώσει βασικές δομές της αντίληψής μας για τον κόσμο γύρω μας. Οι ερευνητές εκτιμούν ότι αυτή η διαπίστωση μπορεί να χρησιμεύσει στην κατανόηση των φοβιών και στην καλύτερη αντιμετώπισή τους.

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Carol Clark (2012).
How fear skews our spatial perception