From: NPR

The Inside Story On The Fear Of Holes

NPR:

Trypophobia may be moving out of the urban dictionary and into the scientific literature. A recent study in the peer-review journal Psychological Science takes a first crack at explaining why some people may suffer from a fear of holes.

Trypophobia may be hard to find in textbooks and diagnostic manuals, but a brief Web search will show that plenty of people appear to have it.

There’s even a website, trypophobia.com, that explains the problem like this: “Have you ever felt anxious when you see a hole in the road or a pot? Or are you nervous when someone will bring a cheese with lots of holes in front of you? If yes, you might have trypophobia.”

But why?

Geoff Cole and Arnold Wilkins, both researchers at the Centre for Brain Science at the University of Essex, decided to analyze the characteristics of the images that appear on the trypophobia.com website.

Read the whole story: NPR


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