Monsters on the Brain: An Evolutionary Epistemology of Horror

Abstract

Fear of the dark (nyctophobia), spiders (arachnophobia), and snakes (herpetophobia) are universal terrors among human beings, whereas zombies, vampires, and psychopaths are more culturally specific.But do the cultures of horror (from folktales to Hollywood monsters) have roots in the evolution of our cognitive operating--system?Is our brain hard--wired with instinctual fears of certain morphologies, or does culture alone write our biases on the blank slate of developing consciousness?Horror is a biocultural nexus and can serve as an interdisciplinary bridge between humanities and scientific methodologies -a kind of case study for triangulating philosophy, psychology and biology.Recent research into the neuroscience of fear and cognition will be applied to some of the perennial experiences of horror, and an epistemology of horror will shed light on certain debates in the philosophy and evolution of mind."Suddenly he heard a groan -his teeth chattered," writes Washington Irving, about the frightened teacher Ichabod Crane, in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.Crane finds himself in headless--horseman territory, tentatively riding his stubborn horse along a dark road.In what many regard as the first American horror story, Irving describes Crane's charged emotional state."In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen and towering.It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveler.The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head with terror.What was to be done?"(Irving 2006, 342)

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