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Charlie Riedel / AP
Scared of spiders? An intriguing new study examines both arachnophobia and "Dr. Who" fandom.
Picture this: you're sitting in a garden on a pretty summer day, and along comes a butterfly and a bumblebee. Which grabs your attention first?
Evolution would suggest that we're primed to detect threats, so we might pay attention to the buzzing little bee. But butterflies are pretty. And here are some complications: what if we're especially afraid of bees or especially entranced by butterflies?
The answers could provide insight into phobias, since we pay close and immediate attention to things that scare the bejesus out of us, even if they're probably harmless and there are more interesting things around. Now, a new study aims to discover how we get distracted by things that are (or aren't) scary.
"Very intense stimuli, such as bright lights or loud sounds, capture our attention automatically, "says study co-author Helena Purkis. "Other types of stimuli, such as threats like snakes and spiders, supposedly grab our attention in the same way."
Instead of bees and butterflies, the researchers turned to arachnoids and cult TV: they exposed 72 British subjects to a variety of photos, including some of spiders and characters or objects (including the T.A.R.D.I.S.) from the British show "Dr. Who." (The researchers are proud of this, noting that "we are the first study to use images from Dr. Who for the purposes of scientific research!" Positively wibbly-wobbly!)
The idea was to figure out whether people would be more automatically distracted by spider photos because spiders are potentially threatening. It turns out they were -- but only if they were afraid of spiders to begin with.
"The higher the participants ranked on "Dr. Who" fandom, the more attention they allocated to Dr. Who," Purkin said. "Similarly, the more fear they had of spiders, the more attention was allocated to spiders."
Some subjects were both spider phobes and fans of "Dr. Who." They were more distracted by the spiders, said Purkis, a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Queensland in Australia, whose study appears in the journal Emotion.
The study suggests that non-phobic people don't come pre-programmed to immediately notice a possible threat like a spider, even though it's an age-old threat to humans. They might first notice something they're especially interested in, like a bit of pop culture that's only been around for a little while.
The next step is to determine how to train people to not pay attention to certain threats, Purkis said.
That may be tough for arachnophobic "Dr. Who" fans who might especially appreciate the characters called The Daleks. ("EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!") It turns out that the Empress of Racnoss, a character in the show, is a giant spider.
"The Empress," Purkis said, "would be the ultimate attention- grabbing stimulus for any Dr. Who-loving spider phobe."
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Leave a Comment:
So, who's bright idea was it to include a big picture of a spider web along with this article, thereby guaranteeing that lots of arachnophobes wouldn't be able to read it (or at least the part near the picture)? I'm not usually one to criticize the editors but - that's really stupid, folks.
Haha, I thought the exact thing! It took me 10 minutes to work up the courage to scroll down and prepare for what I might see.
I think the spiders would grab my attention faster, but for the opposite reason: I love spiders! They're absolutely fascinating, and spin gorgeous webs.
I like them too. But I'm careful not to touch them because some spiders around here can give bad bites. My sister got bit and the wound started to fester quickly and she had to go to the hospital. So it's ok to admire them. But if I have to put one outside I get a container first.
There are certain spiders that I love as well, the garden variety,we get "weavers" here that are gorgeous in color and weave the most fascinating webs.
But I certainly don't care for the poisonous ones.If I see one of those around it doesn't last long!
Me too, C. Smith. My daughter and her family were visiting, she came into my room to tell me there was a tarantula in the room the girls sleep in ( her version of any big spider) I went in looked around, couldn't find anything. Later that morning I felt something land on my shoulder and there was one of those huge hairy garden spiders (wolf spider looking thing but BIGGER) on my shoulder so I walked out to the deck and put it on the bannister and called the kids up from the woods to see mommy's tarantula... well, the kids were fascinated but my daughter almost passed out when she saw it, apparently the one she saw was MUCH SMALLER... Spiders won me over when I found a dead wasp in a spider web. I hate wasps....
My adult son is afraid of spiders but loves tarantulas! Go figure. I guess the hair puts them more in the animal realm for him.
Your story made me itch! I'm terrified of any spider of any variety. But tarantulas make me cry =(
Good on 'yer, C. Smith & mn. They are so useful & we live on 8+ acres ( kept well-mowed), so we must have millions of them. I used to know how many per acre there generally were. Their webs truly are beautiful after a rain!
Now comes the big moment: I'm a recovering Arachnaphobic going way back as far as I can remember. I was caught in a sleeping bag at Girl Scout Camp & the zipper jammed. It was something out of a bad movie. In fact, when we told my parents we were going to get married, my Dad said hubby had to do 3 things:
1. Fix Zippers
2. KILL SPIDERS
3. Take that damned stereo-lol. ( And he didn't swear-lol)
Ironically, we don't have much of a problem with them; not like living in the city where they were everywhere! Wonder why?
an abundance of whatever eats spiders? bats maybe?
Dogs and cats, too. And mainly... other spiders. I HATE spiders. :P
Actually, there is a disease that apparently is killing bats in our area. We put up a bat house a couple of yrs ago like in our other home & the birds use it for a nest.
Um. Wow. What a fascinating story. Chock full of real science and, more importantly, real darn good advice.
I mean imagine a person reacting to a stimuli if that stimuli is frightening to them? GET OUT! Wow. Break out the Noble Prize.
This is not a study. Unless you call a bunch of out-of-work guys drinking beers mulling life and nature...scientists.
I just wasted 7 minutes of my life. I want a refund.
If that took you 7 minutes to read, you've got other problems...
Wouldn't you think it would be a GOOD thing to be preprogrammed to quickly identify a possible threat? I think I would want to keep that quality.
It's "Doctor Who" NOT "Dr. Who."
I call it Spi-dar...I can spot a spider from 20 paces and plan my exit. I once made my husband come home from work to kill a spider (a HUGE wolf spider.) Even he had to admid it was a pretty big spider. And while we're at it I can't watch that commercial where the guy gets beat up by the spider, either.
J I can't watch that one either. I took me 30 years just to be able to not freak out at a daddy long legs.(yes I know they cannot bite me and they eat other spiders).
Haha, J. I love it. Spi-dar.
I was once trapped in my kitchen by a brown recluse (they're dangerous and aggressive as well as terrifying!), until my boyfriend got home from work to kill it. Then, several years before a huge (while mainly harmless) wood spider parked itself right in front of the stairs to get upstairs from the basement. My best friend had to come over and get the vacuum!
I have many stories that weren't so funny at the time, but looking back now I can laugh (even if they still make me itch).
This article really struck home with me. I am petrified of any spider (yes, it took me a long time to work up the courage to click the link to open the article!), in any shape or size. Tarantulas or any similar looking spiders are the worst.
I have lists of movies that I will never watch simply because I know that there are spiders in them. If I watch them, it can't be alone because I need to hide! I actually left the theater during Harry Potter.
There is also something to the fact that we can spot them before anyone else. I havent often spotted a little 8 legged freak long before anyone else, and alerted everyone to its existence with my scream!
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