FEAR changes how we see things, enhancing our ability to identify blurry shapes but impairing our perception of fine details. This may help us to escape threats.
Looking at a fearful face, which activates the brain in a similar way to feeling fear, enhances sensitivity to visual contrast, but whether it improves vision across the board wasn’t clear. So and at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, showed people pictures of faces with either fearful or neutral expressions, followed by a “blob” covered in stripes of varying thicknesses.
Those shown a fearful face were better at…
