Visual search for animal fear-relevant stimuli in children

Figures & data

Figure 1. Examples of fear and non-fear-relevant pictures displayed in 3×3 and 2×2 arrays.

Figure 2. (a,c) Mean reaction times (RTs) and (b,d) percentages of errors (+SE) for (a,b) adults in Experiment 1 and (c,d) children in Experiment 2 during target-absent and target-present conditions as a function of the fear-relevance of the background items in the Array_4 and Array_9 tasks. In target-present conditions, targets are either snakes or spiders in non-fear-relevant backgrounds and mushrooms or flowers in fear-relevant backgrounds. (▪) Fear background; (□) non-fear background.

Figure 3. (a) Mean reaction times (RTs) and (b) percentages of errors (+SE) for children in Experiment 3 during target-absent and -present conditions as a function of the fear-relevance of the background items in the Array_9 task. In target-present conditions, targets are either snakes or spiders in non-fear-relevant backgrounds and mushrooms or flowers in fear-relevant backgrounds. (▪) Fear background; (□) non-fear background.

Table I. Child- and parent-report questionnaire measures for high- and low-fearful children

Questionnaire Measure	Fear Group	N	M	SD
Child report
SNAQ	Low	17	3.35	1.61
	High	18	16.11	4.98
SPQ	Low	17	3.21	1.44
	High	18	15.11	5.77
SCAS-C	Low	17	13.05	11.03
	High	18	33.22	13.39
Parent report
Snake fear^†	Low	16	2.81	2.07
	High	17	5.47	3.00
Spider fear^†	Low	16	3.37	2.57
	High	17	5.12	2.97
SCAS-P	Low	17	12.11	8.40
	High	18	20.06	6.44
SCAS-C, SCAS-P = Spence Children's Anxiety Scale – Child and Parent versions; SNAQ = Snake Fear Questionnaire; SPQ = Spider Fear Questionnaire.
Snake fear-Parent and Spider fear-Parent are rated on a 0 – 8 severity scale (0 = not at all fearful; 8 = extremely fearful).
^†Data from one parent in each group were not provided.

Figure 4. Mean reaction times (RTs) and percentages of errors (+SE) for low-fearful and high-fearful children in Experiment 3 during target-absent and -present conditions as a function of the fear-relevance of the background items in the Array_9 task. In target-present conditions, targets are either snakes or spiders in non-fear-relevant backgrounds and mushrooms or flowers in fear-relevant backgrounds. (▪) Fear background; (□) non-fear background.