For reference:
https://gizmodo.com/are-humans-hardwired-to-detect-snakes-1453865235
I had a moment last week where I stopped before I consciously recognized a snake. The poor thing was dead, but it reminded me that I’d read about this happening before. However, since I know about it, I could be reading into my response. When I’ve asked other people, a couple have been like “oh, I think I had that happen once.” But that’s all anecdotes I’ve biased by telling them the theory.
Nevertheless, I enjoy the anecdotes, and I’m also curious if other people think it’s real.
Pretty sure I have the opposite of this. I almost pissed on a rattlesnake once. Totally didn’t even notice it until I’d already squatted over it and it rattled at me. I scrambled away and we were both fine, but I was in its strike range and had no idea.
Our subconscious contains a huge number of reflex loops, some hardwired, others soft. By the time your conscious mind is aware of the situation, it’s often over. Martial arts (and other forms of fast competition) aim to significantly rewire these responses e.g. the instinct to protect the face becomes a structured rising block.
As for the snake one. I’ve had a few occasions where it, or something related has triggered. Mostly it’s a false positive, but not every time. I’ve had it go off for a grass snake (harmless) and a mouse before. I was well clear before my conscious brain caught up and could assess and react.
That article seems wildly misinformed at best and AI-written at worst. Saying that humans evolved color and forward-facing vision just to detect snakes is ridiculous, and the claim that snake venom evolved after constriction (and has anything to do with humans) is definitely not the current scientific consensus. As it stands now, we actually believe that the lizard ancestors of snakes already had a basic form of venom, and the unique thing that the snake lineage evolved were hollow teeth for efficient venom injection. Because apparently the venomns within the venomous lizards and all the branches of snakes are too similar to have evolved convergently, while hollow snake teeth probably evolved two or three separate times.
I don’t believe there’s a specific instinct that’s tied to snakes in particular. We know that there are plenty of mammalian instincts around motion detection and responding to being startled, and to me it sounds way more likely that it’s just those in effect in all these anecdotes. You also probably wouldn’t remember all the snakes you never noticed so there’s potential for some heavy confirmation bias.
I’d also claim that if there were an instinct about detecting snakes, babies should have it? They’re probably the most food-sized a human can get (even if they’re still too big for most snakes and humans in general are an awful shape for swallowing because of our broad shoulders) Well, apparently babies have no inherent response to snakes and any fear of them is probably learned. Here’s a video: https://youtu.be/3L4lxusff1cBut, if we’re doing ancdotal evidence my own evidence is that I was reading emails with my snake on my lap the other day and didn’t notice her scooting away into my chair until it was already too late and she was firmly wedged in there. Had to poke her butt to coax her into coming out from there.
spoiler
Oh no this was a legit scientific study like 10 years ago.
It’s not exactly current research but this is likely where this is coming from. The primary limitation I would say is that the sample size was adults and like you said most genetic traits are apparent from infancy. It could be a gene that doesn’t activate until the brain gets to it’s next level of threat detection, but it’s also quite possible that fear or even demonization of snakes has some kind of real deep roots in some kind of early human proto-culture.
But yeah there was actually a rigorously scientific study behind this it’s just the interpretation and whether or not it’s been found to be reproducible or improved upon in the ten years since that’s more important.
There’s the article I remember! Those blurry snake images really stuck in my brain.
😭 you’re very welcome you have no idea how flattering it is to essentially answer a tip of my tongue question about a neuroscience research paper.
Relevant Username
The input from your senses is sent to your subconscious mind which sends a report to your conscious mind, but it’s just a summary and sometimes in review needs an addendum.
Exactly. It’s like hiking down a path and you’re admiring the scenery but it’s quiet. No birds. Nothing. Your subconscious picks up on that and you feel that “intuition”. Something isn’t right. There’s a predator around.
That part of your mind that is consciousness is regarded by the rest of the brain as quite a simple thing I think. The information it receives in terms of vision for example needs to be carefully cartooned for it, your consciousness, that part of your brain you regard as yourself needs to be told only about clouds and blue sky and a rabbit jumping in green grass. What the subconscious mind actually receives from the eye is 120 million electrical dot point signals many times a second carrying information like light intensity up small amount spectral shift large left. It has to piece all that together to give a good guess at what might be happening outside the skull, marry it with the information coming from the other eye to suggest the third dimension, compare it to what the information was in the previous millisecond dataset to infer action and blend that all into signals from the other senses and a general running model of what is likely to be there and dumb that down and send rabbits and clouds to the conscious mind. Sometimes in all of this vague threats are detected and monitored but the conscious mind is not explicitly informed so it doesn’t get upset. The subconscious mind is doing this while also managing a virtual infinity of internal bodily system signals also requiring constant response.
I find it hard to believe we specialized in one predator like that. I think we have a lot of danger signals hardwired in and maybe snakes behavior happen to trigger a few. A lot of stories I see below remind me when I was walking with a friend on the train tracks and train was coming up behind us. The reaction, the mental time distortion. We jumped and hauled ass to the side and the train was super far away but the danger sense was triggered so it had the feel.
No but having grown up rural I’ve had the brake pedal flat on the ground for several seconds before I even consciously registered the deer eyes reflecting out from the bushes on the side of the road.
I definitely have it. I grew up with tons of copperheads. They aren’t aggressive but they are masters of camouflage and the babies are deadly venomous. Being able to spot the brown orange danger noodles smaller then my finger in the leaves I’m raking or tree I’m about to lean on has saves me a lot. Now that I’ve moved to NZ that has no snakes I still feel my snake alarm go off with an unexpected stop midstride, but it’s typically just a skink.
I had family in town visiting a while back. They brought their RV and were staying at a nice park by a lake. While there I decided to walk my dog down one of the paths to the lake. When we reached the edge of the water we stood there for a second and he started sniffing around. For whatever reason, I thought, “this would be a great place for a snake to be right now”. As I completed the thought I looked towards my dog and about 2 feet in front of him, where the bank met the water was a fairly large water moccasin. I locked the leash and pulled my dog back to me and then left. It was very surreal. If I had waited another 10 seconds I’m sure my dog would have ended up being bitten.
I wasn’t aware of this phenomenon but this explains a story of mine. Halloween when I was a kid, we were out with my friend’s mom trick-or-treating when a copperhead jumped out into the street we were walking on. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a human react faster, friend’s mom picked up a rock, threw it, and struck the snake in the head. Part of that was probably mon instinct, but I wonder if she had a snake sense.
This thread made me remember a story my own mom told me about seeing a snake heading towards oblivious-toddler me and how she reacted without even thinking to yank me away. Mom action hero vs snake moments!
Hmm. I’m not sure.
I was out for a walk, and just as I passed a lawn sprinkler, it turned on and hissed. I jumped thinking it was an animal behind me, and I might have thought, “snake!”. It wasn’t just a normal startle, it was an immediate, and strong fight or flight response. My heart rate shot up, I spun around and instantly focused on the source of the noise; 100% instinct.
Your mind works on different levels at the same time. Responses to danger (and sexual attraction) happen much more quickly than can be explained by cognition. There is a part of your brain, that doesn’t have access to language or consciousness that can identify scary snakes (and pretty girls) faster than your conscious mind could identify them.
Brain-scans have found that the conscious fear response isn’t a reaction to the stimulus, but rather it’s reacting to your sympathetic nervous system freaking out. The part of your mind that sounded the alarm is invisible to you.
I don’t have a fear of snakes, and no, they can be right next to me and I don’t notice.
Most “water moccasins” are other black water snakes, rattlesnake won’t bother you, it will run away. We just don’t have any snakes where I live that are both venomous and aggressive. No cobras, no mambas nothing like that.
I was working in the yard once and a hawk was watching me. He saw the snake I did not, swooped down, grabbed it, and flew up onto the fence next to me, then ate the snake quite dramatically right in front of me. That’s how clueless I am about them. I do like to see them in the yard, but they usually hide.
You know, I don’t think of myself as afraid of snakes or even anxious around them, but looking back I remember certain things that might have created some wariness.
I remember going out to play in the spring and family warning me to leave any snakes i saw sunning themselves alone because they were confused and slow (and thus more dangerous?) when they were colder. And my mother telling a story about a snake coming towards me when I was very little playing outside, and her sweeping in to grab me. I could have absorbed that wariness, and it’s just in my brain now. I think they’re kind of cute, honestly, but maybe my grandmother transmitted her phobia to me while babysitting with stories I don’t even remember.
I was curious if many people would mention having a non-reaction like yours. Brains are so interesting!
Many, many times. Quite real.
Yeah I’ve felt it. When I was a young teenager while dicking about in my parents acreage I heard some sand falling that was in my peripheral vision making a “hissing” sound as it fell. The sound combined with the movement made my brain auto detect it as a snake lol. Bypassed all conscious thinking to react, almost like touching a really hot surface. Just tensed up and quickly pivoted my entire body towards the movement/noise before freezing for a second or to as my brain processed what was actually happening. Got hit with that adrenaline rush a couple seconds later. Pretty awesome playtime all things considered.
I can always hear snakes, they move in short hurts before they run away. If they’re stressed they have an obvious smell as well. Dangerous snakes are rare where I live, so these are not useful skills aside from catching them while hiking.
