Fear changes the way we see things, literally. According to a study carried out at the Erasmus University (Holland) and published in the journal Psychological Science , after seeing the face of a scared person , regions involved in the sensation of fear are activated in our brain that increase our sensitivity to the contrast of the images (difference between light and dark areas) and reduce the sharpness in the perception of details.
This change in visual perception, explained Bruno Bocanegra and René Zeelenberg, co-authors of the study, improves our ability to assess the distance at which a subject is, whether they are moving, and the speed at which they are moving . According to Bocanegra, when we are scared "we are not concerned if the person who threatens us has freckles or wrinkles, we care if their movements involve danger."
