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01-03-2013 | Original Article

The effects of an unexpected spider stimulus on skin conductance responses and eye movements: an inattentional blindness study

Auteurs: Julian Wiemer, Antje B. M. Gerdes, Paul Pauli

Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research | Uitgave 2/2013

Abstract

Are spiders evolutionarily relevant threat cues that capture attention automatically and preattentively—also in non-fearful persons? Previous studies concerning this question did not examine responses to unexpected spider stimuli, although this is an ecologically valid situation. Therefore, we conducted an inattentional blindness (IB) experiment. While unselected participants (N = 120) were focusing their attention on a visual discrimination task, suddenly a spider or a flower image appeared. The rates of reported detection were not enhanced for spider images, and fear of spiders had no moderating influence on IB rates. However, spider pictures in general elicited greater skin conductance responses than flower pictures, and this difference was also observed for pictures that were not reported afterward. Moreover, eye movement data revealed that the spider stimulus was initially fixated more often than the flower stimulus. In sum, our findings imply that enhanced reactions to unexpected spider images are independent of fear level and include early engagement processes. Awareness of a spider picture does not seem to be a prerequisite for elevated arousal.

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In exploratory analyses, we also defined high and low fearful groups by means of a median split or by comparing the 25% with the lowest and the highest scores, respectively. These analyses, as with a continuous variable, did not reveal significant differences between high and low fearful participants in detection rates, skin conductance responses and eye movements.

In a different analysis with a time window of 1–5 s after stimulus onset and a minimum response criterion of 0.01 µS, all significant results were maintained.

The leaves of the flower used in the experiment share features with the leg of a spider. However, we avoided a flower stem without leaves because of shared features with the discrimination task’s cross; shared features are known to cause reduced IB effects (Mack & Rock, 1998).

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Titel: The effects of an unexpected spider stimulus on skin conductance responses and eye movements: an inattentional blindness study
Auteurs: Julian Wiemer
Antje B. M. Gerdes
Paul Pauli
Publicatiedatum: 01-03-2013
Uitgeverij: Springer-Verlag
Gepubliceerd in: Psychological Research / Uitgave 2/2013
Print ISSN: 0340-0727
Elektronisch ISSN: 1430-2772
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-011-0407-7

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