Boo! Culture, Experience, and the Startle Reflex

Ronald C. Simons is Professor of Psychiatry and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at Michigan State University, and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington.

PART I: STARTLE AND HYPERSTARTLE ; Introduction ; 1. Startle as a Personal Experience and as a Social Resource ; 2. Making People Jumpy: Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn Create a Hyperstartler ; 3. Variations on a Theme: Being Startled Makes One Ill ; 4. The Startle Museum I: Exhibits of Startle Sorted by their Expository Uses ; 5. The Startle Museum II: Exhibits of Startle Sorted by Properties of Startle Events ; PART II: LATAH AND OTHER STARTLE-MATCHING SYNDROMES ; 6. Attention Capture and the Startle-Matching Syndromes ; 7. Latah: The Paradigmatic Startle-Matching Syndrome ; 8. Explaining Latah: The Importance of Descriptive Detail ; 9. The Startle-Matching Syndrome in Other Cultures ; 10. Culture, Biology, and Individual Experience