Disgust, rooted in human evolutionary history, serves as a vital defense mechanism against pathogens, manifesting in varied behaviors. This paper explores the intricate relationship between disgust...Show moreDisgust, rooted in human evolutionary history, serves as a vital defense mechanism against pathogens, manifesting in varied behaviors. This paper explores the intricate relationship between disgust and visual attention, employing the eye-tracking method. Drawing insights from primate studies, habituation, and human facial expressions, the research aims to address three key questions: Does gaze aversion occur in humans when exposed to disgusting stimuli, extending avoidance behavior into the visual domain? Do individuals exhibit prolonged attention to facial area, indicating a social imperative to assess the risk of pathogen contamination? How does gaze aversion change with repeated exposure to disgust-inducing stimuli? The study employs three conditions, including scenes of feces ingestion in the test condition, to assess total looking time. Results reveal significant gaze aversion towards feces as compared to control conditions, supporting the hypothesis of avoidance behavior. Participants displayed prolonged attention to faces during non-disgusting conditions, challenging assumptions about social necessity for risk assessment. Repeated exposure across trials to disgust-inducing stimuli did not significantly alter gaze behavior, highlighting the nuanced nature of responses to aversive stimuli. Discussion of the findings and implications are also addressed.Show less
Motor mimicry has been studied since the beginning of the last century, however it remains in need of research and is far from being fully understood. Here, we investigate the effect of gender and...Show moreMotor mimicry has been studied since the beginning of the last century, however it remains in need of research and is far from being fully understood. Here, we investigate the effect of gender and social distance (extent of realism during human interaction) on the amount of mimicry. We do so by utilizing repeated measures design, all participants were assigned with an undercover confederate. During each measurement, the confederate has performed one of the following behaviours: yawning, scratching, lip biting or face touching. The conditions were as follows: Pre-recorded (recorded video stimuli), Live Stream (live video stimuli) and Live Interaction (live stimuli). The analysis demonstrated that gender has no significant effect on the prevalence of all mimicry types. Social distance has been noted to have some arguable effects. Hopefully, further research will be able to utilize experience gained during this experiment in both practical and methodological sense, in order to achieve better understanding of certain populations and human neurophysiology in general.Show less
