Calling all of my fellow Big Honkin' Chicken Club members and friends. According to a study, it turns out that there may be a genetic reason for our scaredy-cattedness. (How's that for a word?)
This news makes me feel so much better. I remember about five or six years ago being at Universal in LA and we were going through the Mummy. It wasn't a ride but more or less a high tech haunted house. There was music and sounds and things that could go bump in the night. Well, I was screaming and squealing and grabbing the person in front of me about every 2 seconds, even when nothing scary was happening. I made so much noise that a crowd gathered outside the exit door to see who that frightened woman was. (Such a proud moment for me, BTW.)
Here's what the piece about the study says:
The COMT gene weakens the effect of a signaling chemical (dopamine) in the brain linked to emotion. Dr Martin Reuter and his colleagues at the University of Bonn measured the "startle response" of 96 women with different variations of the gene by attaching electrodes to their eye muscles. When a person is startled upon emotional arousal the eyes automatically blink.
The women were shown sets of pictures that were emotionally pleasant (such as animals or babies), neutral (such as an electric plug or hair dryer) or aversive (such as weapons or injured victims at a crime scene). A loud noise was made at random while they watched to startle the volunteers.
Vindicated! Do you hear me, Brandilyn Collins? I am vindicated!
-rlh-
I have it on good authority that the Romance Writers of America, the Gentle Readers League, and the Historical Authors Organization paid for this study. Readers, draw your own conclusions.
Robin, I love you anyway. Even if you are gullible.
My husband is continually amazed by how easily I startle. I now have an entire collection of Brandilyn’s books here, which he’s read. If I pass a bookcase and happen to see the spine of one, I jump!!! 🙂 If he’s got the book in bed with him at night, I can’t sleep. IT’S TOO CLOSE. Ha. I blame in on my Grandma, who let me stay up late with her when I was WAY too little, watching Alfred Hitchcock.
I do think all my jumping may have some aerobic benefit, though. So it’s all good.
I think it’s what we read as kids that warped, er shaped, us. LOL I grew up on Nancy Drew and Alfred Hitchcock. And Sammy Terry. Bet you never watched those, Robin! LOL
Incidentally, I came here looking for your awesome new cover you mentioned on Twitter! LOL
LOL, Brandilyn. I love you, too, girlfriend.
Katy, they better not sit us next to each other in a tense movie. We’ll scare each other to death jumping at nothing.
Colleen, I read the Trixie Beldon mysteries, but most of my reading was anything with dogs and/or horses as the subject. Even with the corny special effects, Hitchcock’s The Birds still scares me. And the cover you were looking for? I’m not sharing on my blog quite this soon. There are two other books that release before it, so I think I’ll wait awhile.
Robin