SPIDERS LOOK BIGGER IF YOU ARE AFRAID OF THEM

People who fear spiders tend to perceive these creepycrawlies as larger than they actually are, a new study finds.

The research, though hair-raising for some, could be useful in treating phobias, the scientists said.

“We found that although individuals with both high and low arachnophobia rated spiders as highly unpleasant, only the highly fearful participants overestimated the spider size,” Tali Leibovich, a researcher in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at BenGurion University (BGU) of the Negev in Israel, said in a statement.

The researchers devised an experiment to figure out whether arachnophobia influences people’s perceptions of spiders.

The scientists gave 80 female students a questionnaire to rate their levels of arachnophobia. The researchers took only the top 20 per cent and bottom 20 per cent of respondents, or 12 students who said they were very afraid of spiders and 13 who said they were unafraid of the eight-legged arthropods.

The scientists then had the students sit at a computer that showed a sliding scale, with a photo of a fly at one end and a photo of a lamb at the other. A computer program then presented the students with several photos of birds, butterflies and spi- ders, and asked the participants to click where on the sliding scale each animal fit in terms of size. The program also asked each participant to rate whether they found each photo pleasant or unpleasant. Overall, every student found pictures of spiders unpleasant. However, only students in the fearful group overestimated the size of the spiders compared with the butterflies, according to the study.

Although individuals with both high and low arachnophobia rated spiders as highly unpleasant, only the highly fearful participants overestimated their size