The study investigates the role of emotion in driving attention, focusing on the detection of fear-relevant stimuli (snakes and spiders) among fear-irrelevant stimuli (flowers and mushrooms). Participants were faster to detect fear-relevant stimuli, regardless of their location in the display or the number of distractors. This suggests parallel search for fear-relevant targets and serial search for fear-irrelevant targets. Additionally, participants who were specifically fearful of snakes or spiders showed faster detection of their feared objects compared to non-fearful participants, indicating that evolutionary-relevant threats capture attention more effectively. The findings support the idea that humans have an evolved mechanism to prioritize attention towards potentially harmful stimuli, with fear-relevant targets being processed more efficiently and with less variation in response times.The study investigates the role of emotion in driving attention, focusing on the detection of fear-relevant stimuli (snakes and spiders) among fear-irrelevant stimuli (flowers and mushrooms). Participants were faster to detect fear-relevant stimuli, regardless of their location in the display or the number of distractors. This suggests parallel search for fear-relevant targets and serial search for fear-irrelevant targets. Additionally, participants who were specifically fearful of snakes or spiders showed faster detection of their feared objects compared to non-fearful participants, indicating that evolutionary-relevant threats capture attention more effectively. The findings support the idea that humans have an evolved mechanism to prioritize attention towards potentially harmful stimuli, with fear-relevant targets being processed more efficiently and with less variation in response times.