Let's revisit one of my previous posts, the one about shyness.
I had pointed out three possible conditions that contribute to why we feel overwhelmed when exposed to a new experience.
1. We were unprepared to receive the incoming information and stimuli; as such, our stable household environment became a new environment
2. We did not know how to discern what was pertinent to us as we experienced it
3. We had not yet learned how other people express and convey important information
When these conditions are true, everything appears to be a threat, and we respond with the fight or flee response. I'll admit that it's possible to have more conditions, but for now, this should be sufficient to think about.
The funny thing is that being exposed to new forms of communication is often like this as well. We hear strange contemporary "music" that comes across as dissonant noise to us, while other people call it a profound masterpiece or social commentary. Our immediate reaction is to abhor it if we cannot get past point two or three. Once we can ascertain these things, we can finally make our judgment calls on whether or not the music or people are good or bad.
There's a case study done by Radiolab about Stravinski's Rite of Spring which examines this phenomenon from a neurological point of view. People weren't ready to hear these strange sounds, and regardless of when the music would be introduced
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