Studies demonstrated that threat-relevant stimuli are detected quicker than
threat-irrelevant stimuli and processed automatically. However previous
studies used perceptually highly different images - snakes/spiders vs
mushrooms/flowers. We investigated how observers search for threat-relevant
and threat-irrelevant stimuli, which are highly similar. We used images of
mammals (threatening and not threatening). In Exp1/Exp2 observers searched
for threat-relevant image among threat-irrelevant images and vice versa. In
Exp2 observers searched for threat-relevant/threat-irrelevant image among
highly dissimilar neutral images. In both experiments, threat-relevant
stimuli were not found faster - threat does not capture attention.
Corresponding
author: Yuri A. Markov, e-mail: yuamarkov@gmail.com