Re-examining our evolutionary propensities toward snakes: Insights from children's inattentional blindness.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the divergent viewpoints regarding fearful stimuli in young children by analyzing variations in eye movement tracking and detection rates when confronted with the sudden appearance of either snakes or lizards. A total of 137 five to six-year-old Chinese children (43.8% male) participated in the study, which utilized the inattentional blindness paradigm. The results indicated that young children did not display any attentional bias toward snakes when compared with lizards, as evidenced by their detection rates and eye movement tracking. Interestingly, the children fixated on lizards earlier than snakes. These findings suggest that the notion of an evolution bias toward ancestral threats may not be as credible as previously believed.