Cole's team set out to explore the causes of intensive phobia. In the experiment, a subject's report aroused the interest of the research team members. The subject described that he felt similar discomfort when he saw some poisonous animals, such as the blue-ringed octopus. As a result, the members of the research team got some pictures of very dangerous poisonous animals. These animals include the blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena), the Brazilian wandering spider (Phoneutria), the inland Taipan snake (Oxyuranusmicrolepidotus), the king cobra (Ophiophagus hannah) and the grouper (Synanceia). At the same time, the experimenter also selected some pictures of octopus, spider and snake which are similar in shape but not dangerous as control. After the images of these animals were processed according to the previous experiments, the researchers were surprised to find that the images of toxic animals also had higher contrast in the middle range of spatial frequency compared with those of non-toxic animals.

Blue ring octopus

Therefore, Cole and his team believe that intensive phobia is actually a manifestation of the discovery-avoidance effect on toxic animals. And this influence may have occurred before the origin of mankind. Discomfort with the visual characteristics of poisonous animals helps our ancestors to find and escape the invasion of poisonous animals in time and fix them in the depths of our human brain through heredity. "I think that even if we don't realize it, everyone actually has a strong fear tendency," Cole said. In fact, one of Cole's experiments shows that even people who are not afraid of porous photos will feel uncomfortable when watching them.