As with all emotion, fear has an evolutionary basis. There seem to be some ‘natural fears’, such as the fear of spiders and snakes, which, although learned from cues by adults, humans seem predisposed to. Our ancestors needed to be afraid of picking up snakes or hurting them, and with time, features of our visual system that helped us detect snakes were selected and favored by evolution. It has been shown that the primate visual system responds selectively to mosaic patterns which are generally rare in nature, but common in snakes. Other fears that seem to be the result of natural selection are the fear of pointed objects and that of leopard spots.
Some amount of fear is required for our survival, but most of even those essential fears appear to set in only a little later in life, and by observation of fearful behaviors in adults. Scientists have found that two fears are inborn in humans—the fear of falling, and that of loud noises.
Short of zapping our amygdalas, which seems a bit extreme, constant and scientific exposure to whatever it is that we fear seems to be what will do the trick.
The full article does in fact address this! I perhaps should have been more clear about what a natural phobia is and included a long rambling bit about how the visual processing stuff is being poorly explained in that article - recognition of the patterns they’re talking about are absolutely present but do not contribute a fear response in their own. The important part however is that they can be reversed!
The full article does in fact address this! I perhaps should have been more clear about what a natural phobia is and included a long rambling bit about how the visual processing stuff is being poorly explained in that article - recognition of the patterns they’re talking about are absolutely present but do not contribute a fear response in their own. The important part however is that they can be reversed!
Snakes are adorable and constrictors are cuddly and very smooth and nice to touch.
Venomous snakes are terrifying because they’ll kill you but otherwise if they’re not bites they can be very nice if they’re raised in captivity.
They are still cold blooded killing machines but there isn’t really much to worry about unless it’s enormous or you’re a rat