You see what you avoid: Fear of spiders and avoidance are associated with predominance of spiders in binocular rivalry

What we see is the result of an efficient selection of cues in the visual stream. In addition to physical characteristics this process is also influenced by emotional salience of the cues. Previously, we showed in spider phobic patients that fear-related pictures gain preferential access to consciousness in binocular rivalry. We set out to replicate this in an independent unselected sample and examine the relationship of this perceptual bias with a range of symptom clusters. To this end, we recruited 79 participants with variable degrees of fear of spiders. To induce binocular rivalry, a picture of either a spider or a flower was projected to one eye, and a neutral geometric pattern to the other eye. Participants continuously reported what they saw. We correlated indices of perceptual dominance (first percept, dominance duration) with individual fear of spiders and with scores on specific symptom clusters of fear of spiders (i.e., vigilance, fixation, and avoidance coping). Overall, higher fear of spiders correlates with more predominace of spider pictures. In addition, this perceptual bias is uniquely associated with avoidance coping. Interestingly, this demonstrates that a perceptual bias, which is not intentionally controlled, is linked with an instrumental coping behavior, that has been implicated in the maintenance of pathological fear.