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- Not all emotions are equal:Fear chemosignals lower awareness thresholds only for fearful facesPublication . Semin, Gün R.; Korb, Sebastian; Gomes, Nuno; Silva, FábioExposure to body odors (chemosignals) collected under different emotional states (i.e., emotional chemosignals) can modulate our visual system, biasing visual perception. Recent research has suggested that exposure to fear body odors, results in a generalized faster access to visual awareness of different emotional facial expressions (i.e., fear, happy, and neutral). In the present study, we aimed at replicating and extending these findings by exploring if these effects are limited to fear odor, by introducing a second negative body odor - i.e., disgust. We compared the time that three different emotional facial expressions (i.e., fear, disgust, and neutral) took to reach visual awareness, during a breaking continuous flash suppression paradigm, across three body odor conditions (i.e., fear, disgust and neutral). We found that fear body odors do not trigger an overall faster access to visual awareness, but instead sped-up access to awareness specifically for facial expressions of fear. Disgust odor, on the other hand, had no effects on awareness thresholds of facial expressions. These findings contrast with prior results, suggesting that the potential of fear body odors to induce visual processing adjustments is specific to fear cues. Furthermore, our results support a unique ability of fear body odors in inducing such visual processing changes, compared to other negative emotional chemosignals (i.e., disgust). These conclusions raise interesting questions as to how fear odor might interact with the visual processing stream, whilst simultaneously giving rise to future avenues of research.
- Can Humans Discriminate Horse ‘Fear’ Chemosignals from Control Chemosignals? Comment on Sabiniewicz et al. A Preliminary Investigation of Interspecific Chemosensory Communication of Emotions: Can Humans (Homo sapiens) Recognise Fear- and Non-Fear Body Odour from Horses (Equus ferus caballus). Animals 2021, 11, 3499Publication . Semin, Gün R.; Gomes, Nuno; D'Aniello, Biagio; Sabiniewicz, AgnieszkaWe illustrate the problematic nature of different assumptions guiding the examination of whether humans can detect the source of fear chemosignals (i.e., body odors) emitted by horses—a research question examined in an article recently published in Animals. A central issue is that the formulation of the question itself contains the answer to it. In this paper, we parse the problematic assumptions on which the analysis and methodology rely, leading to conclusions that are difficult to support. These assumptions constitute examples of methodological problems that should be avoided in research with animals and odors. The unique aspect of this paper is that it is a collaborative product, including the original contributor, in the pursuit of transparency in science.
- Investigating inattentional blindness through the lens of fear chemosignalsPublication . Semin, Gün R.; DePhillips, Michael; Gomes, NunoInattentional blindness is a phenomenon wherein people fail to perceive obvious stimuli within their vision, sometimes leading to dramatic consequences. Research on the effects of fear chemosignals suggests that they facilitate receivers’ sensory acquisition. We aimed to examine the interplay between these phenomena, investigating whether exposure to fear chemosignals (vs. rest body odors) can reduce the inattentional-blindness handicap. Utilizing a virtual-reality aquarium,we asked participants to count how many morsels a school of fish consumedwhile two unexpected stimuli swam by. We predicted that participants exposed to fear chemosignals (N =131) would detect unexpected stimuli significantly more often than participants exposed to rest body odors (N =125). All participants were adult Portuguese university students aged 18 to 40 years. The results confirmed our hypothesis, χ2 (1) = 6.10,p = .014, revealing that exposure to fear chemosignals significantly increased the detection of unexpected stimuli by about 10%. The implications of our findings open a novel avenue for reducing the adverse consequences of inattentional blindness
- The function of fear chemosignals: Preparing for dangerPublication . Gomes, Nuno; Semin, Gün R.It has been shown that the presence of conspecifics modulates human's vigilance strategies as is the case with animal species. Mere presence has been found to reduce vigilance. However, animal research has also shown that chemosignals (e.g., sweat) produced during fear-inducing situations modulates individuals' threat detection strategies. In the case of humans, little is known about how exposure to conspecifics' fear chemosignals modulates vigilance and threat detection effectiveness. The present study (N= 59) examined how human fear chemosignals affect vigilance strategies and threat avoidance in its receivers. We relied on a paradigm that simulates a "foraging under threat" situation in the lab, integrated with an eye-tracker to examine the attention allocation. Our results showed that the exposure to fear chemosignals (vs. rest chemosignals and a no-sweat condition) while not changing vigilance behavior leads to faster answers to threatening events. In conclusion, fear chemosignals seem to constitute an important warning signal for human beings, possibly leading its receiver to a readiness state that allows faster reactions to threat-related events.