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Aversion to holes driven by disgust, not fear, study finds

Trypophobia, commonly known as “fear of holes,” is linked to a physiological response more associated with disgust than fear, finds a new study published in PeerJ.

Trypophobia is not officially recognized in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders (DSM). Many people, however, report feeling an aversion to clusters of holes — such as those of a honeycomb, a lotus seed pod or even aerated chocolate.

“Some people are so intensely bothered by the sight of these objects that they can’t stand to be around them,” says Stella Lourenco, a psychologist at Emory University whose lab conducted the study. “The phenomenon, which likely has an evolutionary basis, may be more common than we realize.”

Previous research linked trypophobic reactions to some of the same visual spectral properties shared by images of evolutionarily threatening animals, such as snakes and spiders. The repeating pattern of high contrast seen in clusters of holes, for example, is similar to the pattern on the skin of many snakes and the pattern made by a spider’s dark legs against a lighter background.

“We’re an incredibly visual species,” says Vladislav Ayzenberg, a graduate student in the Lourenco lab and lead author of the PeerJ study. “Low-level visual properties can convey a lot of meaningful information. These visual cues allow us to make immediate inferences — whether we see part of a snake in the grass or a whole snake — and react quickly to potential danger.”

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