A little “Spidey-sense” in all of us?
The research behind this headline-making claim
The idea of humans possessing some sort of ESP (extrasensory perception) has always intrigued me. After all, we′ve all probably experienced that strange feeling that someone′s watching, turning our heads only to find a pair of eyes (or more) staring back. A sense of intuition; some believe in it, some don′t. A news article I happen to recently come across claimed that there is research out there suggesting we are attuned to the presence of spiders in our surroundings.
At first, I found it hard to wrap my head around such a notion, but after reflecting upon past encounters with spiders, I kind of bought into it. Think about it: how many times have you happened to spot a motionless spider on some random corner of a wall, which you might have otherwise never diverted your attention toward? What was it that made you look? Well, all this wondering prompted me to go check out the research for myself.
The experiment, consisting of seven trials, was repeated twice using a different sample of participants. The instructions were to observe a fixation point on a monitor where a test cross would appear. The objective for all except one trial (7) was to judge which of the two lines was bigger. What these researches claim give their findings and edge over other previous studies of the same nature is their use of an inattentional blindness (IB) paradigm. They try to reproduce the not-so-frequent, unpredictable, task-irrelevant nature of a real-life spider encounter in a lab setting. Both trial 4 and 7 included a different addition experimental stimulus presented at varying quadrant locations and distances from the fixation point, which participants were later asked to detect, locate, and identify. It’s the juxtaposition of the inattention and full attention trails (4 and 7, respectively) that I think is fundamental. As opposed to trial 4, in trial 7 the task was not to judge lines, but rather to just observe the screen. Results are supposedly free of any “attentional biases” in that the effects learning (repetition) and expectations have are accounted for.
Not only was the aim to determine if “attentional priority” is given to spiders over other stimuli but they took it one step further in determining its origins. It is something inherent or acquired with experience? For this, they considered the role metal representations play in object recognition. Among the stimuli presented, distorted versions were also included .The logic was: if an atypical display is detected and properly identified, then sensitivity toward the original stimulus is probably associated with an adaptation of the perceptual system and not learned from past aversive experiences.
I think the reasoning behind the choice of stimuli used in the experiment is pretty clever. But first, I should probably mention what they were. There were three; one being a spider, the other a hypodermic needle, and lastly a housefly. Notice how two can be considered as potential threats and one as simply harmless? More specifically, of the two threatening stimuli, one posed a greater threat to our ancestors and the other is more threatening to us modern-day individuals. Most of us have more personal experience with injections than spider bites. So, if sensitivity to specific stimuli is something we acquire with experience, then the ability of needles to capture our attention should be more than that of spiders which, proved to not be the case.
All in all, in my opinion, the study was well thought out and controlled. Even inter-personal differences in levels of fear were ruled out as confounding factors. I always thought a phobia for spiders heightens one′s awareness of them- but apparently not!
Despite the media′s dramatization of the findings, alluding to Spiderman′s spider-detecting ability, the implications aren’t completely deceitful. Researchers did in fact conclude that humans somehow quickly pick up on the presence of ancestral threats such as spiders, eliciting an instantaneous response that is at times outside of one′s conscious awareness.
One of my only lingering doubts is whether or not the findings would hold true if the participants were instead exposed to real-life versions of the stimuli.
So, we may not have superhero powers but we do have “reflexive awareness”, as the researchers dubbed it- close enough!
P.S. For those interested, here's reference to the research article:
New, Joshua .J & German, Tasmin .C.2015. Spiders at the cocktail party: an ancestral threat that surmounts inattentional blindness. Evolution and Human Behavior 36.165–173.
