The face of fear: Effects of eye gaze and emotion on visual attention

We investigated whether a fearful expression enhances the effect of another's gaze in directing the attention of an observer. Participants viewed photographs of faces whose gaze was directed ahead, to the left or to the right. Target letters then appeared unpredictably to the left or right. As expected, targets in the location indicated by gaze were detected more rapidly. In nonanxious volunteers the effects of fearful gaze did not differ from neutral gaze, but fearful expression had a more powerful influence in a selected high anxious group. Attention is thus more likely to be guided by the direction of fearful than neutral gaze, but only in anxiety-prone individuals.     

Informational cues and attributions based on role behavior

A recent experiment by Messick and Reeder (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1972, 18, 482–491) attempted to extend Jones, Davis, and Gergen's (Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1961, 63, 302–310) classic finding that out-of-role behavior.is more informative for person perception than in-role behavior. It is argued, however, that this study confounded two variables, role performance and occupation. Evidence is presented that the occupation variable alone could have produced Messick and Reeder's results. Both variables seem to affect attributions. The importance of these findings for relating attribution theory and role theory is discussed.     

About Turn: The Visual Representation of Human Body Orientation Revealed by Adaptation

ABSTRACT— Body orientation provides an important cue to other individuals' focus of attention, particularly when one is viewing them at a distance. Single-cell recording in macaques has identified cells in the superior temporal sulcus that show a view-selective response to particular body orientations. Whether similar separable coding is found in humans is not known, and there is currently no functional account of the visual representation of seen body orientation. This study addressed this issue using visual adaptation. Experiment 1 demonstrated distinct channels that code left- and right-oriented bodies. Experiment 2 investigated whether the visual representation of body orientation is best accounted for by an opponent-coding system , which has been shown to account for the visual representation of facial identity, or by a multichannel system , which provides the optimal account of coding line orientation and direction of motion. Our results provide evidence for multichannel coding of seen body orientation, with separate channels (or neuronal populations) selectively tuned to different body directions.     

Anxiety and sensitivity to gaze direction in emotionally expressive faces

This study investigated the role of neutral, happy, fearful, and angry facial expressions in enhancing orienting to the direction of eye gaze. Photographs of faces with either direct or averted gaze were presented. A target letter (T or L) appeared unpredictably to the left or the right of the face, either 300 ms or 700 ms after gaze direction changed. Response times were faster in congruent conditions (i.e., when the eyes gazed toward the target) relative to incongruent conditions (when the eyes gazed away from the target letter). Facial expression did influence reaction times, but these effects were qualified by individual differences in self-reported anxiety. High trait-anxious participants showed an enhanced orienting to the eye gaze of faces with fearful expressions relative to all other expressions. In contrast, when the eyes stared straight ahead, trait anxiety was associated with slower responding when the facial expressions depicted anger. Thus, in anxiety-prone people attention is more likely to be held by an expression of anger, whereas attention is guided more potently by fearful facial expressions.     

The face of fear: Effects of eye gaze and emotion on visual attention

We investigated whether a fearful expression enhances the effect of another's gaze in directing the attention of an observer. Participants viewed photographs of faces whose gaze was directed ahead, to the left or to the right. Target letters then appeared unpredictably to the left or right. As expected, targets in the location indicated by gaze were detected more rapidly. In nonanxious volunteers the effects of fearful gaze did not differ from neutral gaze, but fearful expression had a more powerful influence in a selected high anxious group. Attention is thus more likely to be guided by the direction of fearful than neutral gaze, but only in anxiety-prone individuals.     

Recognition memory for pictorial material in subclinical depression

Depression has been associated with impaired recollection of episodic details in tests of recognition memory that use verbal material. In two experiments, the remember/know procedure was employed to investigate the effects of dysphoric mood on recognition memory for pictorial materials that may not be subject to the same processing limitations found for verbal materials in depression. In Experiment 1, where the recognition test took place two weeks after encoding, subclinically depressed participants reported fewer know judgements which were likely to be at least partly due to a remember-to-know shift. Although pictures were accompanied by negative or neutral captions at encoding, no effect of captions on recognition memory was observed. In Experiment 2, where the recognition test occurred soon after viewing the pictures, subclinically depressed participants reported fewer remember judgements. All participants reported more remember judgements for pictures of emotionally negative content than pictures of neutral content. Together, these findings demonstrate that recognition memory for pictorial stimuli is compromised in dysphoric individuals in a way that is consistent with a recollection deficit for episodic detail and also reminiscent of that previously reported for verbal materials. These findings contribute to our developing understanding of how mood and memory interact.     

The Relation of Cognitive and Memorial Processes to Persuasion in a Simulated Jury Trial

Four experiments investigated the dependence of persuasion on cognitive factors. All experiments employed a court case for which 795 subjects acted as jury members, reading summaries of both the prosecution and defense's testimony. The amount of objective information on both sides of the case was varied. Persuasion was a position function of the number of prosecution arguments and the number of defense arguments. This finding was extended by obtaining measures of the subjects'cognitive reactions to the case as well as their opinions and by following both of these measures over time. Both analysis of variance and multiple regression techniques showed that subjects could have derived their opinions from their cognitions about the case. This relationship also held up over time. These results suggest the general form of an information-processing theory of persuasion. One prediction of this theory is for an asymptotic function relating objective information to persuasion. This prediction received empirical support.     

"You talkin' to me?" Self-relevant auditory signals influence perception of gaze direction

In humans, direct gaze typically signals a deliberate attempt to communicate with an observer. An auditory signal with similar signal value is calling someone's name. We investigated whether the presence of this personally relevant signal in the auditory modality would influence perception of another individual's gaze. Participants viewed neutral faces displaying different gaze deviations while hearing someone call their own name or the name of another person. Results were consistent with our predictions, as participants judged faces with a wider range of gaze deviations as looking directly at them when they simultaneously heard their own name. The influence of this personally relevant signal was present only at ambiguous gaze deviations; thus, an overall response bias to categorize gaze as direct when hearing one's own name cannot account for the results. This study provides the first evidence that communicative intent signaled via the auditory modality influences the perception of another individual's gaze.     

Is evil just very wrong?

Is evil a distinct moral concept? Or are evil actions just very wrong actions? Some philosophers have argued that evil is a distinct moral concept. These philosophers argue that evil is qualitatively distinct from ordinary wrongdoing. Other philosophers have suggested that evil is only quantitatively distinct from ordinary wrongdoing. On this view, evil is just very wrong. In this paper I argue that evil is qualitatively distinct from ordinary wrongdoing. The first part of the paper is critical. I argue that Luke Russell’s attempt to show that evil is only quantitatively distinct from ordinary wrongdoing fails. Russell’s argument fails because it is based on an implausible criterion for determining whether two concepts are qualitatively distinct. I offer a more plausible criterion and argue that based on this criterion evil and wrongdoing are qualitatively distinct. To help make my case, I sketch a theory of evil which makes a genuinely qualitative distinction between evil and wrongdoing. I argue that we cannot characterize evil as just very wrong on plausible conceptions of evil and wrongdoing. I focus on act-consequentialist, Kantian, and contractarian conceptions of wrongdoing.