The effect of facial expression and gaze direction on memory for unfamiliar faces

We report data from an experiment that investigated the influence of gaze direction and facial expression on face memory. Participants were shown a set of unfamiliar faces with either happy or angry facial expressions, which were either gazing straight ahead or had their gaze averted to one side. Memory for faces that were initially shown with angry expressions was found to be poorer when these faces had averted as opposed to direct gaze, whereas memory for individuals shown with happy faces was unaffected by gaze direction. We suggest that memory for another individual's face partly depends on an evaluation of the behavioural intention of that individual.     

The effect of facial expression and gaze direction on memory for unfamiliar faces

We report data from an experiment that investigated the influence of gaze direction and facial expression on face memory. Participants were shown a set of unfamiliar faces with either happy or angry facial expressions, which were either gazing straight ahead or had their gaze averted to one side. Memory for faces that were initially shown with angry expressions was found to be poorer when these faces had averted as opposed to direct gaze, whereas memory for individuals shown with happy faces was unaffected by gaze direction. We suggest that memory for another individual's face partly depends on an evaluation of the behavioural intention of that individual.     

Gaze direction differentially affects avoidance tendencies to happy and angry faces in socially anxious individuals

Increasing evidence indicates that eye gaze direction affects the processing of emotional faces in anxious individuals. However, the effects of eye gaze direction on the behavioral responses elicited by emotional faces, such as avoidance behavior, remain largely unexplored. We administered an Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT) in high (HSA) and low socially anxious (LSA) individuals. All participants responded to photographs of angry, happy and neutral faces (presented with direct and averted gaze), by either pushing a joystick away from them (avoidance) or pulling it towards them (approach). Compared to LSA, HSA were faster in avoiding than approaching angry faces. Most crucially, this avoidance tendency was only present when the perceived anger was directed towards the subject (direct gaze) and not when the gaze of the face-stimulus was averted. In contrast, HSA individuals tended to avoid happy faces irrespectively of gaze direction. Neutral faces elicited no approach-avoidance tendencies. Thus avoidance of angry faces in social anxiety as measured by AA-tasks reflects avoidance of subject-directed anger and not of negative stimuli in general. In addition, although both anger and joy are considered to reflect approach-related emotions, gaze direction did not affect HSA's avoidance of happy faces, suggesting differential mechanisms affecting responses to happy and angry faces in social anxiety.     

“Avoiding or approaching eyes”? Introversion/extraversion affects the gaze-cueing effect

We investigated whether the extra-/introversion personality dimension can influence processing of others’ eye gaze direction and emotional facial expression during a target detection task. On the basis of previous evidence showing that self-reported trait anxiety can affect gaze-cueing with emotional faces, we also verified whether trait anxiety can modulate the influence of intro-/extraversion on behavioral performance. Fearful, happy, angry or neutral faces, with either direct or averted gaze, were presented before the target appeared in spatial locations congruent or incongruent with stimuli’s eye gaze direction. Results showed a significant influence of intra-/extraversion dimension on gaze-cueing effect for angry, happy, and neutral faces with averted gaze. Introverts did not show the gaze congruency effect when viewing angry expressions, but did so with happy and neutral faces; extraverts showed the opposite pattern. Importantly, the influence of intro-/extraversion on gaze-cueing was not mediated by trait anxiety. These findings demonstrated that personality differences can shape processing of interactions between relevant social signals.     

Gaze direction and facial expressions exert combined but different effects on attentional resources

Gaze direction and facial expressions are critical components of face processing and have been shown to influence attention deployment. We investigated whether gaze direction (direct vs. averted) combined with a neutral or angry expression modulates the deployment of attentional resources over time. In a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) paradigm participants had to decide the gender of a neutral or an angry target face with direct or averted gaze (T1) and then to judge the orientation of a target picture of a landscape (T2), following the face at different time intervals. Results showed no attentional blink effect (i.e., no deterioration in T2 accuracy) when T1 was an angry face with direct gaze, whereas it was present for angry faces with averted gaze or neutral faces with either averted or direct gaze. These findings are consistent with appraisal theories and are discussed against the background of automatic processing of threat stimuli.     

Gaze direction and facial expressions exert combined but different effects on attentional resources

Gaze direction and facial expressions are critical components of face processing and have been shown to influence attention deployment. We investigated whether gaze direction (direct vs. averted) combined with a neutral or angry expression modulates the deployment of attentional resources over time. In a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) paradigm participants had to decide the gender of a neutral or an angry target face with direct or averted gaze (T1) and then to judge the orientation of a target picture of a landscape (T2), following the face at different time intervals. Results showed no attentional blink effect (i.e., no deterioration in T2 accuracy) when T1 was an angry face with direct gaze, whereas it was present for angry faces with averted gaze or neutral faces with either averted or direct gaze. These findings are consistent with appraisal theories and are discussed against the background of automatic processing of threat stimuli.     

Angry expressions strengthen the encoding and maintenance of face identity representations in visual working memory

Visual working memory (WM) for face identities is enhanced when faces express negative versus positive emotion. To determine the stage at which emotion exerts its influence on memory for person information, we isolated expression (angry/happy) to the encoding phase (Experiment 1; neutral test faces) or retrieval phase (Experiment 2; neutral study faces). WM was only enhanced by anger when expression was present at encoding, suggesting that retrieval mechanisms are not influenced by emotional expression. To examine whether emotional information is discarded on completion of encoding or sustained in WM, in Experiment 3 an emotional word categorisation task was inserted into the maintenance interval. Emotional congruence between word and face supported memory for angry but not for happy faces, suggesting that negative emotional information is preferentially sustained during WM maintenance. Our findings demonstrate that negative expressions exert sustained and beneficial effects on WM for faces that extend beyond encoding.     

Drawn to danger: trait anger predicts automatic approach behaviour to angry faces

Most people automatically withdraw from socially threatening situations. However, people high in trait anger could be an exception to this rule, and may even display an eagerness to approach hostile situations. To test this hypothesis, we asked 118 participants to complete an approach-avoidance task, in which participants made approach or avoidance movements towards faces with an angry or happy expression, and a direct or averted eye gaze. As expected, higher trait anger predicted faster approach (than avoidance) movements towards angry faces. Crucially, this effect occurred only for angry faces with a direct eye gaze, presumably because they pose a specific social threat, in contrast to angry faces with an averted gaze. No parallel effects were observed for happy faces, indicating that the effects of trait anger were specific to hostile stimuli. These findings suggest that people high in trait anger may automatically approach hostile interaction partners.     

Detection of emotional faces is modulated by the direction of eye gaze

Emotionally expressive faces have shown enhanced detectability over neutral faces, but little is known about the effect of eye gaze on detecting the presence of emotional faces. Emotional expressions and gaze direction are both cues to the intentions of another person, and gaze direction has been shown to affect recognition accuracy and perceived intensity of emotional faces. The current study showed that fearful faces were detected more frequently with an averted gaze than with a direct gaze in an attentional blink task, whereas angry and happy faces were detected more frequently with a direct gaze than with an averted gaze. The results are in line with the shared signal hypothesis and appraisal theory and suggest that selection for awareness was based on a rapid evaluation of the intentions of another person as conveyed by their facial expression and gaze direction.     

Effects of perceived mutual gaze and gender on face processing and recognition memory

Perceived gaze contact in seen faces may convey important social signals. We examined whether gaze perception affects face processing during two tasks: Online gender judgement, and later incidental recognition memory. Individual faces were presented with eyes directed either straight towards the viewer or away, while these faces were seen in either frontal or three-quarters view. Participants were slower to make gender judgements for faces with direct versus averted eye gaze, but this effect was particularly pronounced for faces with opposite gender to the observer, and seen in three-quarters view. During subsequent surprise recognition-memory testing, recognition was better for faces previously seen with direct than averted gaze, again especially for the opposite gender to the observer. The effect of direct gaze was stronger in both tasks when the head was seen in three-quarters rather than in frontal view, consistent with the greater salience of perceived eye contact for deviated faces. However, in the memory test, face recognition was also relatively enhanced for faces of opposite gender in front views when their gaze was averted rather than direct. Together, these results indicate that perceived eye contact can interact with facial processing during gender judgements and recognition memory, even when gaze direction is task-irrelevant, and particularly for faces of opposite gender to the observer (an influence which controls for stimulus factors when considering observers of both genders). These findings appear consistent with recent neuroimaging evidence that social facial cues can modulate visual processing in cortical regions involved in face processing and memory, presumably via interconnections with brain systems specialized for gaze perception and social monitoring.     

The influence of indirect and direct emotional processing on memory for facial expressions

We used the remember-know procedure (Tulving, 1985 ) to test the behavioural expression of memory following indirect and direct forms of emotional processing at encoding. Participants (N=32) viewed a series of facial expressions (happy, fearful, angry, and neutral) while performing tasks involving either indirect (gender discrimination) or direct (emotion discrimination) emotion processing. After a delay, participants completed a surprise recognition memory test. Our results revealed that indirect encoding of emotion produced enhanced memory for fearful faces whereas direct encoding of emotion produced enhanced memory for angry faces. In contrast, happy faces were better remembered than neutral faces after both indirect and direct encoding tasks. These findings suggest that fearful and angry faces benefit from a recollective advantage when they are encoded in a way that is consistent with the predictive nature of their threat. We propose that the broad memory advantage for happy faces may reflect a form of cognitive flexibility that is specific to positive emotions.     

Sex differences for the recognition of direct versus averted gaze faces

Gaze direction plays a central role in face recognition. Previous research suggests that faces with direct gaze are better remembered than faces with averted gaze. We compared recognition of faces with direct versus averted gaze in male versus female participants. A total of 52 adults (23 females, 29 males) and 46 children (25 females, 21 males) completed a computerised task that assessed their recognition of faces with direct gaze and faces with averted gaze. Adult male participants showed superior recognition of faces with direct gaze compared to faces with averted gaze. There was no difference between recognition of direct and averted gaze faces for the adult female participants. Children did not demonstrate this sex difference; rather, both male and female youth participants showed better recognition of faces with direct gaze compared to averted gaze. A large body of previous research has revealed superior recognition of faces with direct, compared to averted gaze. However, relatively few studies have examined sex differences. Our findings suggest that gaze direction has differential effects on face recognition for adult males and females, but not for children. These findings have implications for previous explanations of better recognition for direct versus averted gaze.     

Anxiety and sensitivity to eye gaze in emotional faces

This paper reports three studies in which stronger orienting to perceived eye gaze direction was revealed when observers viewed faces showing fearful or angry, compared with happy or neutral, emotional expressions. Gaze-related spatial cueing effects to laterally presented fearful faces and centrally presented angry faces were also modulated by the anxiety level of participants, with high- but not low-state anxious individuals revealing enhanced shifts of attention. In contrast, both high- and low-state anxious individuals demonstrated enhanced orienting to averted gaze when viewing laterally presented angry faces. These results provide novel evidence for the rapid integration of facial expression and gaze direction information, and for the regulation of gaze-cued attention by both the emotion conveyed in the perceived face and the degree of anxiety experienced by the observer.     

The time-course of visual threat processing: High trait anxious individuals eventually avert their gaze from angry faces

Several experiments have shown that anxious individuals have an attentional bias towards threat cues. It is also known, however, that exposure to a subjectively threatening but relatively harmless stimulus tends to lead to a reduction in fear. Accordingly, some authors have hypothesised that high trait anxious individuals have a vigilant-avoidant pattern of visual attention to threatening stimuli. In the present study, 52 high trait anxious and 48 low trait anxious subjects were shown pairs of emotional faces, while their direction of gaze was continuously monitored. For 0-1000 ms, both groups were found to view angry faces more than happy faces. For 2000-3000 ms, however, only high trait anxious subjects averted their gaze from angry faces more than they did from happy faces.     

面孔参照或观察者参照：性别二态线索、面孔吸引力与表情对正视面孔偏好的影响

本研究探讨了性别二态线索、面孔吸引力和表情对正视面孔偏好的影响。实验1基于面孔参照,被试普遍偏好正视面孔;相对男性化/厌恶和生气/低吸引力的面孔,被试更偏好女性化/高兴和中性/高吸引力的正视面孔;实验2基于观察者参照,总体并未表现出正视偏好;对低吸引力/中性表情/男性化面孔更偏好斜视面孔。     

I just love the attention: implicit preference for direct eye contact

Seven studies used the Implicit Association Test to measure preference for gaze direction. For faces with neutral expressions, people clearly preferred eyes looking towards them compared to eyes gazing to the right or left (Experiment 1). This preference remained for faces shown turned to the side (Experiment 2) and upside-down (Experiment 3). Even angry faces were preferred with direct compared to averted gaze (Experiments 4 and 5). Furthermore, preference for eye contact did not correlate to performance on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) or the Autism Quotient (AQ); note performance on the RMET and the AQ was only weakly correlated although both are claimed to measure social cognition. When the faces were replaced by coloured shapes (Experiment 6) or arrows (Experiment 7) people showed a weaker preference for the category label “looking at you” versus “looking to the side”. Overall, people revealed a robust preference for direct rather than averted gaze which generalized across face pose and expression. Together with a weaker preference for arrows pointing towards them, this is consistent with people having an implicit preference for self-directed attention.     

Looking for foes and friends: perceptual and emotional factors when finding a face in the crowd

In a face-in-the-crowd setting, the authors examined visual search for photographically reproduced happy, angry, and fearful target faces among neutral distractor faces in 3 separate experiments. Contrary to the hypothesis, happy targets were consistently detected more quickly and accurately than angry and fearful targets, as were directed compared with averted targets. There was no consistent effect of social anxiety. A facial emotion recognition experiment suggested that the happy search advantage could be due to the ease of processing happy faces. In the final experiment with perceptually controlled schematic faces, the authors reported more effective detection of angry than happy faces. This angry advantage was most obvious for highly socially anxious individuals when their social fear was experimentally enhanced.     

The neural fate of individual item representations in visual working memory

Previous research has demonstrated an interaction between eye gaze and selected facial emotional expressions, whereby the perception of anger and happiness is impaired when the eyes are horizontally averted within a face, but the perception of fear and sadness is enhanced under the same conditions. The current study reexamined these claims over six experiments. In the first three experiments, the categorization of happy and sad expressions (Experiments 1 and 2) and angry and fearful expressions (Experiment 3) was impaired when eye gaze was averted, in comparison to direct gaze conditions. Experiment 4 replicated these findings in a rating task, which combined all four expressions within the same design. Experiments 5 and 6 then showed that previous findings, that the perception of selected expressions is enhanced under averted gaze, are stimulus and task-bound. The results are discussed in relation to research on facial expression processing and visual attention.     

Talking heads or talking eyes? Effects of head orientation and sudden onset gaze cues on attention capture

The direction of gaze towards or away from an observer has immediate effects on attentional processing in the observer. Previous research indicates that faces with direct gaze are processed more efficiently than faces with averted gaze. We recently reported additional processing advantages for faces that suddenly adopt direct gaze (abruptly shift from averted to direct gaze) relative to static direct gaze (always in direct gaze), sudden averted gaze (abruptly shift from direct to averted gaze), and static averted gaze (always in averted gaze). Because changes in gaze orientation in previous study co-occurred with changes in head orientation, it was not clear if the effect is contingent on face or eye processing, or whether it requires both the eyes and the face to provide consistent information. The present study delineates the impact of head orientation, sudden onset motion cues, and gaze cues. Participants completed a target-detection task in which head position remained in a static averted or direct orientation while sudden onset motion and eye gaze cues were manipulated within each trial. The results indicate a sudden direct gaze advantage that resulted from the additive role of motion and gaze cues. Interestingly, the orientation of the face towards or away from the observer did not influence the sudden direct gaze effect, suggesting that eye gaze cues, not face orientation cues, are critical for the sudden direct gaze effect.     

Task-irrelevant direct gaze facilitates visual search for deviant facial expression

The detection of emotional expression is important particularly when the expression is directed towards the viewer. Therefore, we conjectured that the efficiency in visual search for deviant emotional expression is modulated by gaze direction, which is one of the primary clues for encoding the focus of social attention. To examine this hypothesis, two visual search tasks were conducted. In Emotional Face Search, the participants were required to detect an emotional expression amongst distractor faces with neutral expression; in Neutral Face Search they were required to detect a neutral target among emotional distractors. The results revealed that target detection was accelerated when the target face had direct gaze compared to averted gaze for fearful, angry, and neutral targets, but no effect of distractor gaze direction was observed. An additional experiment including multiple display sizes has shown a shallower search slope in search for a target face with direct gaze than that with averted gaze, indicating that the advantage of a target face with direct gaze is attributable to efficient orientation of attention towards target faces. These results indicate that direct gaze facilitates detection of target face in visual scenery even when gaze discrimination is not the primary task at hand.