The Fear of Snakes, 1st ed. 2019
Evolutionary and Psychobiological Perspectives on Our Innate Fear
The Science of the Mind Series

This book provides a series of compelling evidence that shows that humans have innate fear of snakes. Building on the previous studies on the Snake Detection Theory (SDT), the author presents a  summary of psychological and neuropsychological experiments to explain the fear of snakes in humans and primates. Readers will come to understand why and how we are afraid of snakes from an evolutionary perspective.

The first half of the book discusses the history of psychological behaviorism and neobehaviorism. The latter half of the book consists mainly of the experimental studies performed by the author with a focus on three key items: First, compared with other animals, snakes especially draw the attention of primates and humans. Second, the ability of primates and humans to recognize snakes with particular efficiency. Third, processing mechanisms within the brain for snake detection is discussed from a new viewpoint.

The book offers a unique resource for all primatologists, psychologists, neuroscientists, anthropologists, herpetologists, and biologists who are interested in the evolution of visual and cognitive systems, mechanisms of fear, snakes or primates.

Historical transition of psychological theories of fear: The view of fear in Behaviorism.- Are snakes special in human fear learning and cognition?: The preparedness theory of phobia and the fear module theory.- The Underlying Neuronal Circuits of Fear Learning and the Snake Detection Theory (SDT).- Ontogeny and phylogeny of snake fear.- Do snakes draw attention more strongly than spiders or other animals?.- Other types of studies showing that snakes hold special status in threat perception.- Searching for the critical features of snakes.- Issues that remain unanswered.

Nobuyuki Kawai
Professor of Department of Cognitive and Psychological Sciences
Nagoya University
Nagoya, Japan

Presents a series of experiments that confirm our innate fear of snakes, and explains the evolutionary cause of that fear

Uses various approaches including comparative, developmental, and electro-physiological experiments

Describes the neural mechanism involved in detecting snakes quickly

Readers will learn how to use multiple techniques, indices, and tasks including EEGs, visual search tasks, the RISE technique, and infant looking time