SNK
Wariness Around Snakes
Class: I - Natural Selection
EPA Total Score: 37 /100
Öhman, A., Flykt, A., & Esteves, F. (2001). Emotion drives attention: Detecting the snake in the grass. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 131, 466–478.
Abstract: Participants searched for discrepant fear-relevant pictures (snakes or spiders) in grid-pattern arrays of fear-irrelevant pictures belonging to the same category (flowers or mushrooms) and vice versa. Fear-relevant pictures were found more quickly than fear-irrelevant ones. Fear-relevant, but not fear-irrelevant, search was unaffected by the location of the target in the display and by the number of distractors, which suggests parallel search for fear-relevant targets and serial search for fear-irrelevant targets. Participants specifically fearful of snakes but not spiders (or vice versa) showed facilitated search for the feared objects but did not differ from controls in search for nonfeared fear-relevant or fear-irrelevant, targets. Thus, evolutionary relevant threatening stimuli were effective in capturing attention, and this effect was further facilitated if the stimulus was emotionally provocative.
Submitted by:
Supporting Evidence
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any supporting Theoretical evidence for this EPA.
25/100
Submitted by DJGlass
25/100
Submitted by niruban
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any supporting Medical evidence for this EPA.
35/100
Submitted by niruban
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any supporting Cross-Cultural evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any supporting Genetic evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any supporting Phylogenetic evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any supporting Hunter-Gatherer evidence for this EPA.
Supporting Evidence is evidence that suggests that this trait is an Evolved Psychological Adaptation (EPA) - i.e., that it has been shaped by natural selection to solve a particular adaptive problem.
Challenging Evidence
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Theoretical evidence for this EPA.
0/100
Submitted by DJGlass
0/100
Submitted by niruban
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Medical evidence for this EPA.
0/100
Submitted by niruban
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Cross-Cultural evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Genetic evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Phylogenetic evidence for this EPA.
No one has (yet) rated this source as containing any challenging Hunter-Gatherer evidence for this EPA.
Challenging Evidence is evidence that suggests that this trait is not an EPA - e.g., that it is a product of cultural learning or genetic drift, or maybe it does not exist at all. However over each line of evidence for a description.