Abstract
We tested the hypothesis that human reaction to snakes is very specific when compared to other reptiles.
Using the eye-tracker, we measured free-gazing pattern of 61 respondents while presenting snake and other reptile images categorized as fear-eliciting, disgusting, beautiful, and neutral. We divided the respondents according to their
SNAQ and DS-R scores into high/low fear and high/low disgust groups. We found that while the time watching the stimuli was equal, there were more fixations on the non-snakes due to more continuous watching of the snake stimuli. With fear-eliciting stimuli, most of the attention was directed toward the animal's head, but people focused on both the head and tail when watching the disgusting stimuli. The high-fear respondents' fixation number was overall lower. We conclude that the respondents' gaze pattern differs when watching snakes and this also applies for other fear-eliciting reptiles. We offer various explanations for these findings, supporting the hypothesis of snakes representing a specific group of fear-eliciting animals.