科学美国人60秒 SSS 2014-2-19（在线收听）

 This is Scientific Amercian's 60 seconds sicence. I'm Ellie Wilkinson. Got a minute? If the side of Swiss cheese makes you melt, or the thought of a honeycomb gets you buzzing. You may suffer from a tripophobia, the most common phobia that you've probably never heard of. Tripophobia is the fear of holes. People with the phobia experience panic attacks, increase heart rate and hard sweats when they see clusters of holes. A visual scientist who suffers from tripophobia decided to investigate the phenomenon with his colleague. They perform spectrum analysis on images that induce tripophobia and found of the fear inducing images all have similar characteristics related to luminance, contrast and light wavelengths, but they didn't know why these features cause such an adverse reaction. A study participant mentioned that certain animals also induce to his phobia. So the researchers analyzed pictures of poisonous animals, they discoverd that the tripophobia inducing images and those poisonous animals share the same visual features, suggesting the fear may be an evolutionary survival response. The study is in the journal Psychological Science. So if an English muffin induces his panic attack, your brain may just be saying ''better save and sorry.'' Thanks for the minute, for Scientific American's 60s Science. I'm Ellie Wilkinson.