One of the many perks of being Spider-Man is that you get a sixth sense that tips you off to oncoming danger by making your head tingle. But apparently, a spider-sense is not just the stuff of superheroes and comic books.
Believe it or not, regular human beings actually have something of a spider-sense, but it's a little bit different. Humans' spider-sense makes them more aware of when one of those eight-legged freaks is near them, even if they're not paying attention to their surroundings, a new study to be published in an upcoming issue of Evolution and Human Behavior finds.
In the study, the scientists asked college students to choose the longest line out of several shown on a computer screen. The subjects performed this task three times, and then they were asked to do it again. However, in addition to the lines, another object flashed on the screen for about 200 milliseconds, as much time as it takes for you to blink.
That second object that appeared on the screen was either an image of a hypodermic needle, a housefly or a spider. More than half of the participants noticed the quick flash of the image of the spider, while less than 15 percent noticed the picture of the hypodermic needle and 10 percent noticed the image of the housefly.
