Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 17, 2026
08:25
Measuring Attentional Biases for Threat in Children and Adults
Published on: October 19, 2014
16.0K
Brain systems underlying encounter expectancy bias in spider phobia.
Tatjana Aue1, Marie-Eve Hoeppli, Camille Piguet
1Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Chemin des Mines 9, 1202, Geneva, Switzerland, tatjana.aue@unige.ch.
Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience
|February 20, 2015
Summary
Spider phobia is linked to exaggerated expectations of encountering spiders. Brain activity in phobic individuals shows reduced activity in certain areas when expecting spiders, correlating with irrational fear.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Spider phobia involves exaggerated encounter expectancies.
- Fear circuitry is implicated, but its link to expectancies is unclear.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate how brain activity relates to exaggerated threat expectancies in spider phobia.
- Examine neural mechanisms underlying encounter expectancy bias.
Main Methods:
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used.
- Participants (spider-phobic and controls) imagined forest scenarios with varying animal encounter likelihoods.
- Brain responses were analyzed based on imagined encounter expectancies.
Main Results:
- Spider-phobic individuals showed altered brain responses compared to controls.
- Phobics exhibited negative modulation in lateral prefrontal cortex, precuneus, and visual cortex for spider expectancies.
- This neural modulation correlated with the degree of irrationality in spider encounter expectancies.
Conclusions:
- Expectancy biases in spider phobia may stem from impaired cognitive control and contextual integration.
- Right-sided frontal and parietal brain regions appear crucial for these deficits.
Related Concept Videos
01:09Preparedness and Phobias
448
Human fear responses to certain stimuli, such as darkness, heights, deep water, and blood, can often arise despite the absence of direct negative experiences. This phenomenon is rooted in evolutionary psychology, which posits that humans have developed a predisposition to fear stimuli that historically posed significant survival threats. This predisposition, known as preparedness, suggests that early humans who developed a fear of potentially dangerous entities, such as venomous snakes and...
448
01:42Schemas
12.5K
A schema is a mental construct consisting of a cluster or collection of related concepts (Bartlett, 1932). There are many different types of schemata, and they all have one thing in common: schemata are a method of organizing information that allows the brain to work more efficiently. When a schema is activated, the brain makes immediate assumptions about the person or object being observed.
12.5K
01:08The Availability Heuristic
7.3K
A heuristic is a general problem-solving framework (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). You can think of these as mental shortcuts that are used to solve problems. Different types of heuristics are used in different types of situations, and the impulse to use a heuristic occurs when one of five conditions is met (Pratkanis, 1989):
7.3K
01:20Evolutionary Psychology
1.3K
Evolutionary psychology explores the origins of human behavior and mental processes by framing them within the context of natural selection, a theory famously propounded by Charles Darwin. This field asserts that many behaviors common across human societies — ranging from instinctive fear reactions to complex social interactions — arose as evolutionary adaptations. These adaptations enhanced the survival and reproductive success of our ancestors, thereby becoming embedded in the...
1.3K
01:09First Impression
406
First impressions play a crucial role in social perception, shaping how individuals assess others in professional, academic, and interpersonal contexts. Psychological research highlights the significance of cognitive biases, such as the primacy and recency effects, which influence how people interpret and recall information.The Primacy Effect and Cognitive AnchoringThe primacy effect describes the tendency for initial information to impact judgment disproportionately. When individuals encounter...
406
01:31Confirmation Biases
8.6K
The confirmation bias is the tendency to focus on information that confirms our existing beliefs and ignore information that is inconsistent with our expectations. For example, if you think that your professor is not very nice, you notice all of the instances of rude behavior exhibited by the professor while ignoring the countless pleasant interactions he is involved in on a daily basis. Have you ever fallen prey to the confirmation bias, either as the source or target of such bias?
8.6K