Background and objectives

Previous studies have shown that humans, particularly those with high levels of spider fear, show automatic avoidance of spiders. However, most tasks used in these studies employ symbolic approach-avoidance movements instead of naturalistic movements.

Methods

The current study employed a touchscreen-based approach-avoidance task in which 86 female participants made hand and arm movements that mimic the real-life touching, grasping, and moving of spiders. Using a large touchscreen, they had to reach for pictures of spiders and neutral objects (leaves), touch them, and drag them either away from themselves or towards themselves. To draw attention to stimulus content, pictures of butterflies were used in additional NoGo trials, they required participants to not move their hand.

Results

Avoidance of spiders was observed in both the pre-movement times (time to lift the hand from a starting position) and the grabbing times (time to reach the picture), and this avoidance was larger for more spider-fearful participants. The dragging times (time to swipe the picture), however, revealed a relative spider-approach tendency: Compared to leaves, participants were faster to drag spiders closer than to swipe them away.

Limitations

We discuss potential reasons for this mixed pattern of results, including the low reliability of the dragging times.

Conclusions

We recommend the use of touchscreens for the assessment of approach-avoidance tendencies, and we suggest avenues for further research.

中文翻译：

---

抢还是不抢？通过基于触摸屏的手部动作测量对蜘蛛的回避

背景和目标

先前的研究表明，人类，尤其是那些对蜘蛛恐惧程度高的人，会自动避开蜘蛛。然而，这些研究中使用的大多数任务都采用象征性的趋近回避运动而不是自然主义运动。

方法

目前的研究采用了基于触摸屏的方法回避任务，其中 86 名女性参与者进行手部和手臂动作，模仿现实生活中蜘蛛的触摸、抓握和移动。使用大触摸屏，他们必须伸手去拿蜘蛛和中性物体（树叶）的图片，触摸它们，然后将它们拖离自己或靠近自己。为了引起人们对刺激内容的注意，在额外的 NoGo 试验中使用了蝴蝶图片，他们要求参与者不要移动他们的手。

结果

在移动前时间（将手从起始位置抬起的时间）和抓取时间（到达图片的时间）都观察到了蜘蛛的回避，并且对于更害怕蜘蛛的参与者来说，这种回避更大。然而，拖动时间（滑动图片的时间）揭示了蜘蛛接近的相对趋势：与树叶相比，参与者将蜘蛛拖近的速度比将它们滑开的速度更快。

限制

我们讨论了这种混合结果模式的潜在原因，包括拖动时间的可靠性低。

结论

我们建议使用触摸屏来评估回避倾向，并建议进一步研究的途径。