Fear-evoked stimuli in social and non-social domains: comparative effects on electrophysiological processes

Fear is a vital survival mechanism across species, triggering responses to threats and aiding in navigating dangerous environments. In humans, it plays a key role in risk assessment and decision-making, contributing to adaptive behaviour and survival. Emotional well-being and inform strategies can be enhanced for managing fear-related disorders by understanding fear's neural processing through fear-evoked stimuli. This study aimed to compare the effects of social (human mutilation) and non-social (wild animals) fear-evoked stimuli on the human brain using the event-related potential (ERP) technique. Thirty-eight participants of mixed gender and ethnicity underwent ERP assessments while being exposed to images of mutilation and wild animals alongside neutral geometric images. Brain activity was measured using a 128 HydroCel Geodesic Sensor Net, focusing on the N200 component, indicative of emotional processing. The analysis revealed that social fear-evoked stimuli (human mutilation images) elicited greater electrophysiological responses in most brain areas than non-social stimuli (wild animal images). This finding suggests that stimuli related to social fears have a greater impact on the brain than non-social fears, likely due to humans' inherent empathy for one another. The gender factor may interfere with this emotional fear processing. It highlights the critical role of social context in fear response. It suggests that understanding these dynamics can guide more effective treatments for anxiety and phobias, opening avenues for further exploration into how psychological interventions influence fear reactions.