Here's why some people develop coffee bubble phobia

Some people experience intense aversion and anxiety when they see bubbles in their coffee and this condition may be an exaggerated response linked to deep-seated anxiety about parasites and infectious diseases, says a study.

Previous explanations for this condition is known as Trypophobia, include the suggestion that people are evolutionarily predisposed to respond to clusters of round shapes because these shapes also found in poisonous animals like some snakes and blue-ringed octopus.

The research by Tom Kupfer in Britain, suggests that the condition may instead related to an evolutionary history of infectious disease and parasitism that leads to an exaggerated sensitivity to round shapes.

Many infectious diseases result in clusters of round shapes on the skin such as smallpox, measles, rubella, typhus and scarlet fever, among others. Similarly in ecto-parasites, like scabies, tics and botfly.

The study, published in the journal Cognition, Emotion saw the participation of over 300 people with trypophobia, and 300 university students without trypophobia took part. Both groups are invited to view sixteen cluster images.

Eight were pictures of clusters relating to diseased body parts (for example, circular rash marks on a chest; smallpox scars on a hand; a cluster of ticks) and other eight cluster images had no disease-relevant properties (for example, drilled holes in a brick wall; a lotus flower seed pod).

Both groups of participants reported finding the disease-relevant cluster images unpleasant to look at but whereas the university students didn’t find the disease-irrelevant cluster images unpleasant, the trypophobic group found them extremely unpleasant.

This finding says that individuals with trypophobia experience an over generalised response even the image of bubbles on a cup of coffee can trigger aversion in the same way as a cluster of tics or lesions.