Forever yuck: Oculomotor avoidance of disgusting stimuli resists habituation

Disgust is an adaptation forged under the selective pressure of pathogens. Yet disgust may cause problems in contemporary societies because of its propensity for "false positives" and resistance to corrective information. Here, we investigate whether disgust, as revealed by oculomotor avoidance, might be reduced through the noncognitive process of habituation. In each of three experiments, we repeatedly exposed participants to the same pair of images, one disgusting and one neutral, and recorded gaze. Experiment 1 (N = 104) found no decline in oculomotor avoidance of the disgusting image after 24 prolonged exposures. Experiment 2 (N = 99) replicated this effect and demonstrated its uniqueness to disgust. In Experiment 3 (N = 93), we provided a gaze-contingent reward to ensure perceptual contact with the disgusting image. Participants looked almost exclusively at the disgusting image for 5 min but resumed baseline levels of oculomotor avoidance once the reward ceased. These findings underscore the challenge of reducing disgust. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).