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. 2014 Nov 5;1(3):140066.
doi: 10.1098/rsos.140066. eCollection 2014 Nov.

Viewing images of snakes accelerates making judgements of their colour in humans: red snake effect as an instance of 'emotional Stroop facilitation'

Masahiro Shibasaki  1 , Tomoko Isomura  1 , Nobuo Masataka  1
Affiliations

Viewing images of snakes accelerates making judgements of their colour in humans: red snake effect as an instance of 'emotional Stroop facilitation'

Masahiro Shibasaki et al. R Soc Open Sci. .

Abstract

One of the most prevalent current psychobiological notions about human behaviour and emotion suggests that prioritization of threatening stimuli processing induces deleterious effects on task performance. In order to confirm its relevancy, 108 adults and 25 children were required to name the colour of images of snakes and flowers, using the pictorial emotional Stroop paradigm. When reaction time to answer the colour of each stimulus was measured, its value was found to decrease when snake images were presented when compared with when flower images were presented. Thus, contrary to the expectation from previous emotional Stroop paradigm research, emotions evoked by viewing images of snakes as a biologically relevant threatening stimulus were found to be likely to exert a facilitating rather than interfering effect on making judgements of their colour.

Keywords: colour perception; emotional Stroop interference; enhancement of perception; pictorial Stroop paradigm; snake fear.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Examples of the stimuli used in the experiment. (a) Image of snake in red and (b) image of flower in blue.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
RTs of the participants. (a) Adult and (b) child participants across the six variations of the stimuli.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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