Does facial expression affect attention orienting by gaze direction cues?

In 6 experiments, the authors investigated whether attention orienting by gaze direction is modulated by the emotional expression (neutral, happy, angry, or fearful) on the face. The results showed a clear spatial cuing effect by gaze direction but no effect by facial expression. In addition, it was shown that the cuing effect was stronger with schematic faces than with real faces, that gaze cuing could be achieved at very short stimulus onset asynchronies (14 ms), and that there was no evidence for a difference in the strength of cuing triggered by static gaze cues and by cues involving apparent motion of the pupils. In sum, the results suggest that in normal, healthy adults, eye direction processing for attention shifts is independent of facial expression analysis.     

The influence of approach–avoidance motivational orientation on conflict adaptation

To deal effectively with a continuously changing environment, our cognitive system adaptively regulates resource allocation. Earlier findings showed that an avoidance orientation (induced by arm extension), relative to an approach orientation (induced by arm flexion), enhanced sustained cognitive control. In avoidance conditions, performance on a cognitive control task was enhanced, as indicated by a reduced congruency effect, relative to approach conditions. Extending these findings, in the present behavioral studies we investigated dynamic adaptations in cognitive control—that is, conflict adaptation. We proposed that an avoidance state recruits more resources in response to conflicting signals, and thereby increases conflict adaptation. Conversely, in an approach state, conflict processing diminishes, which consequently weakens conflict adaptation. As predicted, approach versus avoidance arm movements affected both behavioral congruency effects and conflict adaptation: As compared to approach, avoidance movements elicited reduced congruency effects and increased conflict adaptation. These results are discussed in line with a possible underlying neuropsychological model.     

Comparison of choose-a-movie and approach–avoidance paradigms to measure social motivation

Social motivation is a subjective state which is rather difficult to quantify. It has sometimes been conceptualised as “behavioural effort” to seek social contact. Two paradigms: approach–avoidance (AA) and choose a movie (CAM), based on the same conceptualisation, have been used to measure social motivation in people with and without autism. However, in absence of a direct comparison, it is hard to know which of these paradigms has higher sensitivity in estimating preference for social over non-social stimuli. Here we compare these two tasks for their utility in (1) evaluating social seeking in typical people and (2) identifying the influence of autistic traits on social motivation. Our results suggest that CAM reveals a clear preference for social stimuli over non-social in typical adults but AA fails to do so. Also, social seeking measured with CAM but not AA has a negative relationship between autistic traits.     

Human social defeat and approach–avoidance: Escalating social-evaluative threat and threat of aggression increases social avoidance

Basic research on avoidance by Murray Sidman laid the foundation for advances in the classification, conceptualization and treatment of avoidance in psychological disorders. Contemporary avoidance research is explicitly translational and increasingly focused on how competing appetitive and aversive contingencies influence avoidance. In this laboratory investigation, we examined the effects of escalating social-evaluative threat and threat of social aggression on avoidance of social interactions. During social-defeat learning, 38 adults learned to associate 9 virtual peers with an increasing probability of receiving negative evaluations. Additionally, 1 virtual peer was associated with positive evaluations. Next, in an approach–avoidance task with social-evaluative threat, 1 peer associated with negative evaluations was presented alongside the peer associated with positive evaluations. Approaching peers produced a positive or a probabilistic negative evaluation, while avoiding peers prevented a negative evaluation (and forfeited a positive evaluation). In an approach–avoidance task with social aggression, virtual peers gave and took money away from participants. Escalating social-evaluative threat and aggression increased avoidance, ratings of feeling threatened and threat expectancy and decreased ratings of peer favorableness. These findings underscore the potential of coupling social defeat and approach–avoidance paradigms for translational research on the neurobehavioral mechanisms of social approach–avoidance decision-making and anxiety.     

Who do you trust? The impact of facial emotion and behaviour on decision making

During social interactions, we use available information to guide our decisions, including behaviour and emotional displays. In some situations, behaviour and emotional displays may be incongruent, complicating decision making. This study had two main aims: first, to investigate the independent contributions of behaviour and facial displays of emotion on decisions to trust, and, second, to examine what happens when the information being signalled by a facial display is incongruent with behaviour. Participants played a modified version of the Trust Game in which they learned simulated players’ behaviour with or without concurrent displays of facial emotion. Results indicated that displays of anger, but not happiness, influenced decisions to trust during initial encounters. Over the course of repeated interactions, however, emotional displays consistent with an established pattern of behaviour made independent contributions to decision making, strengthening decisions to trust. When facial display and behaviour were incongruent, participants used current behaviour to inform decision making.     

Approach–avoidance of facial affect is moderated by the presence of an observer-irrelevant trigger

This study examined whether approach–avoidance related behaviour elicited by facial affect is moderated by the presence of an observer-irrelevant trigger that may influence the observer’s attributions of the actor’s emotion. Participants were shown happy, disgusted, and neutral facial expressions. Half of these were presented with a plausible trigger of the expression (a drink). Approach–avoidance related behaviour was indexed explicitly through a questionnaire (measuring intentions) and implicitly through a manikin version of the affective Simon task (measuring automatic behavioural tendencies). In the absence of an observer-irrelevant trigger, participants expressed the intention to avoid disgusted and approach happy facial expressions. Participants also showed a stronger approach tendency towards happy than towards disgusted facial expressions. The presence of the observer-irrelevant trigger had a moderating effect, decreasing the intention to approach happy and to avoid disgusted expressions. The trigger had no moderating effect on the approach–avoidance tendencies. Thus the influence of an observer-irrelevant trigger appears to reflect more of a controlled than automatic process.     

Influence of facial expression on memory for facial identity: effects of visual features or emotional meaning?

Research has shown that neutral faces are better recognized when they had been presented with happy rather than angry expressions at study, suggesting that emotional signals conveyed by facial expressions influenced the encoding of novel facial identities in memory. An alternative explanation, however, would be that the influence of facial expression resulted from differences in the visual features of the expressions employed. In this study, this possibility was tested by manipulating facial expression at study versus test. In line with earlier studies, we found that neutral faces were better recognized when they had been previously encountered with happy rather than angry expressions. On the other hand, when neutral faces were presented at study and participants were later asked to recognize happy or angry faces of the same individuals, no influence of facial expression was detected. As the two experimental conditions involved exactly the same amount of changes in the visual features of the stimuli between study and test, the results cannot be simply explained by differences in the visual properties of different facial expressions and may instead reside in their specific emotional meaning. The findings further suggest that the influence of facial expression is due to disruptive effects of angry expressions rather than facilitative effects of happy expressions. This study thus provides additional evidence that facial identity and facial expression are not processed completely independently.     

Effects of face and inanimate-object contexts on stimulus–response compatibility

Prior studies have shown that a left–right spatial compatibility effect occurs for vertically oriented stimuli relative to a background context of a face rotated 90° clockwise or counterclockwise from upright. For stimuli presented at the location of the eyes, the mapping of the right eye to a right response and the left eye to a left response, as would be viewed by the participant, yields better performance than does the opposite mapping. An issue of current interest in social cognition is whether animate objects are processed differently from inanimate ones. We investigated this issue in two experiments in which we compared the compatibility effects obtained with inanimate objects to those obtained with animate, face stimuli. The results showed left–right compatibility effects from the participant’s perspective for vehicles and faces from frontal and profile views, as well as for a road sign. Our findings indicate that coding of stimulus location relative to an external frame of reference is not restricted to face backgrounds.     

Are you looking at me? Mu suppression modulation by facial expression direction

Although we encounter numerous expressive faces on a daily basis, those that are not aimed at us will often be disregarded. Facial expressions aimed at our direction appear far more relevant and evoke an engaging affective experience, while the exact same expressions aimed away from us may not. While the importance of expression directionality is intuitive and commonplace, the neural mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are largely unknown. In the current study we measured EEG mu rhythm suppression, an established measure of mirror neuron activity, while participants viewed short video clips of dynamic facial expressions. Critically, the videos portrayed facial emotions which turned towards or away from the viewer, thus manipulating their degree of social relevance. Mirroring activity increased as a function of social relevance such that expressions turning toward the viewer resulted in increased sensorimotor activation (i.e., stronger mu suppression) compared to identical expressions turning away from the viewer. Additional analyses confirmed that expressions turning toward the viewer were perceived as more relevant and engaging than expressions turning away from the viewer, a finding not explained by perceived intensity or recognition accuracy. Mirror sensorimotor mechanisms may play a key role in determining the relevance of perceived facial expressions.     

Effects of route familiarity on drivers’ psychological conditions: Based on driving behaviour and driving environment

Route familiarity affects a driver’s mental state and indirectly affects traffic safety; however, this important factor is easily overlooked. Previous research on route familiarity has only analysed psychological states in terms of unfamiliarity and familiarity, the influence of driving behaviour and driving environment on psychological states has been ignored. As a result, the mechanisms through which the route familiarity influence driver psychological states, and vice versa, are unclear. This study proposes a quantitative framework for studying driver psychological condition and route familiarity using experimental data from a real driving task and driving environment data. The experimental data included 1022 observations obtained by 23 participants over 7 consecutive trials on 6 unfamiliar experimental routes with large differences in scenarios; environmental data were automatically extracted after segmenting a driving video through the Dilated Residual NetWorks model. The results reveal that (1) the relationship between the driver’s psychological condition and route familiarity is not monotonic and is different for straight and turning sections; (2) the driver’s psychological condition is influenced by the visual scene elements and the type of road section, and the results of the multivariate regression analysis quantified the variability of the influence; and (3) unlike a majority of findings on distracted driving, our study suggest that the driver’s attention to the external environment in the urban distracted driving state will gradually approach a ‘distraction threshold’, and the time and size of the ‘distraction threshold’ are influenced by the driver. This study can further the development of urban traffic safety research and help urban designers plan and improve urban landscapes to ensure drivers maintain stable mental states when they drive.     

Induction of implicit evaluation biases by approach–avoidance training: A commentary on Vandenbosch and De Houwer (this issue)

Vandenbosch and De Houwer (this issue) reported a series of failures to induce an implicit evaluation bias by means of an approach–avoidance training paradigm. In this commentary, we point out issues raised by Vandenbosch and De Houwer that we interpret differently or that we would like to emphasise more thoroughly. In addition, we report recent results from a replication study from our lab in which we found the effects in question. Finally, we provide an overview of potential future studies needed to replicate and validate the approach–avoidance training effects.     

Can beauty be ignored? Effects of facial attractiveness on covert attention

Facial beauty has important social and biological implications. Research has shown that people tend to look longer at attractive than at unattractive faces. However, little is known about whether an attractive face presented outside foveal vision can capture attention. The effect of facial attractiveness on covert attention was investigated in a spatial cuing task. Participants were asked to judge the orientation of a cued target presented to the left or right visual field while ignoring a task-irrelevant face image flashed in the opposite field. The presentation of attractive faces significantly lengthened task performance. The results suggest that facial beauty automatically competes with an ongoing cognitive task for spatial 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.     

Does gaze direction really trigger a reflexive shift of spatial attention?

Previous studies have found that the gaze direction of a centrally presented face facilitates response time (RT) to a lone peripheral target. The widely accepted interpretation of this finding is that gaze direction triggers a cortically mediated reflexive shift of spatial attention. In the present study we tested an alternative explanation, that a target appearing abruptly on its own in the visual field triggers a subcortically mediated reflexive shift of spatial attention, which is modulated by compatibility with gaze direction. Using central gaze cues, we compared RT to a single peripheral onset target with RT to a peripheral onset target accompanied by an equivalent distractor at the mirror opposite location. In both cases the facilitation effect was the same, demonstrating conclusively that the observed orienting is attributable to the reflexive effects of the gaze cue.     

Relationship maintenance and biases on the line bisection task: Attractive alternatives,asymmetrical cortical activity,and approach–avoidance motivation

People in long-term romantic relationships possess relationship maintenance mechanisms designed to protect against the temptation of desirable relationship alternatives. The current research examined the link between relationship maintenance mechanisms and an index of neurologically based approach/avoidance motivation. Participants completed a line bisection task that yields measures of asymmetric activity in the right and left frontal cortices; such activity is thought to reflect people's level of approach/avoidance motivation. Compared to single participants, participants in committed relationships displayed relatively less left visual field bias on the line bisection task (indicative of greater left frontal cortical activation and greater cognitive avoidance motivation) in response to available, attractive opposite-sex targets. Decreased left visual field bias was particularly pronounced among individuals with moderate levels of relationship commitment — those expected to display the highest levels of relationship maintenance. These findings provide insight into perceptual, motivational, and neurological processes that may help people avoid tempting relationship alternatives.     

Effects of temporal asynchrony and stimulus magnitude on competitive audio–visual binding

When making decisions as to whether or not to bind auditory and visual information, temporal and stimulus factors both contribute to the presumption of multimodal unity. In order to study the interaction between these factors, we conducted an experiment in which auditory and visual stimuli were placed in competitive binding scenarios, whereby an auditory stimulus was assigned to either a primary or a secondary anchor in a visual context (VAV) or a visual stimulus was assigned to either a primary or secondary anchor in an auditory context (AVA). Temporal factors were manipulated by varying the onset of the to-be-bound stimulus in relation to the two anchors. Stimulus factors were manipulated by varying the magnitudes of the visual (size) and auditory (intensity) signals. The results supported the dominance of temporal factors in auditory contexts, in that effects of time were stronger in AVA than in VAV contexts, and stimulus factors in visual contexts, in that effects of magnitude were stronger in VAV than in AVA contexts. These findings indicate the precedence for temporal factors, with particular reliance on stimulus factors when the to-be-assigned stimulus was temporally ambiguous. Stimulus factors seem to be driven by high-magnitude presentation rather than cross-modal congruency. The interactions between temporal and stimulus factors, modality weighting, discriminability, and object representation highlight some of the factors that contribute to audio–visual binding.     

Effects of response–stimulus interval manipulation and articulatory suppression on task switching

We conducted three experiments using a list paradigm to examine how articulatory suppression and response–stimulus interval (RSI) manipulation affected task switching. Experiments 1 and 2 tested task-switching performance under a short and long RSI and three concurrent task conditions (control, articulatory suppression, and tapping) without external task cues. The results indicated that alternation had a greater effect under articulatory suppression than under the control and tapping conditions, and that articulatory suppression costs were unrelated to the RSI. In Experiment 3, an external task cue was provided with each stimulus, and the negative effect of articulatory suppression on alternation cost was eliminated. These results indicated that articulatory suppression effects did not differ between conditions of short and long RSI and that the availability of verbal representations of task information was independent of RSI length. This paper discussed the possible roles played by the phonological loop in task-switching paradigms.     

How farsighted are behavioral tendencies of approach and avoidance? The effect of stimulus valence on immediate vs. ultimate distance change

Research suggests that affective stimuli facilitate behavior that causes a compatible change in distance (i.e., approach positive and avoid negative stimuli). In natural settings, however, behavior often causes different consequences at different points in time. It is unclear whether affective stimuli interact with immediate or ultimate action-consequences (i.e., consequences that are more removed in time). To shed light on this, we tested whether stimulus valence facilitates behavior that ultimately causes a compatible change in distance, even when this behavior immediately causes an incompatible distance change. Participants moved a manikin on a computer screen toward or away from a positive or negative word. On half of the trials, moving the manikin ultimately in one direction required an initial movement in the opposite direction. Results from two studies showed that stimulus valence facilitated ultimate-compatible distance change regardless of the initial direction. This suggests that affective stimuli facilitate behavior that is relatively farsighted.     

Effects of the cross-section on the driver’s behaviour approaching bicycle crossroads

This paper reports on the results of field surveys conducted at the approaching section of two bicycle crossroads in urban environment. The crossing roads are characterised by different cross-sections (one-lane and two-lane configurations) having a same marking scheme. The aim of the surveys was to evaluate the effectiveness of the specific marking scheme for the two different cross-sections and to provide relevant insight to improve the cyclist safety, based on the observed drivers’ behaviours. More specifically, the data analysis was aimed at: (i) studying the yielding behaviour of the drivers on the two bicycle configurations and evaluating the effects of the observed vehicle dynamics constraints in approaching phases; (ii) analysing drivers’ braking during the interaction with cyclist; (iii) defining a logistic regression model for predicting the drivers’ likelihood of yielding as a function of the variables describing his behaviour and the cross-section configurations. Results have stressed out a more critical driver yielding behaviour and braking performance when approaching the bicycle crossroad on the two-lane configuration. The logistic regression model have pointed out the cross-section variable to have the strongest effect on the logit of drivers yielding, determining a significant reduction of the likelihood of yielding if the interaction driver-cyclist occurs in the two-lane configuration. Overall, the obtained outcomes highlight a higher risk exposure of the cyclist crossing the two-lane configuration. The obtained outcomes imply that the same marking scheme on the two different cross-section configurations is inappropriate. It fails to induce proper driver behaviour when he/she approaches the bicycle crossing on the two-lane configuration in order to limit the cyclist's risk exposure to the values observed on the one-lane configuration. Eventually, several measures and recommendations have been defined to reduce the risk conditions identified in two-lane configuration.     

All eyes on me?! Social anxiety and self-directed perception of eye gaze

To date, only little is known about the self-directed perception and processing of subtle gaze cues in social anxiety that might however contribute to excessive feelings of being looked at by others. Using a web-based approach, participants (n=174) were asked whether or not briefly (300 ms) presented facial expressions modulated in gaze direction (0°, 2°, 4°, 6°, 8°) and valence (angry, fearful, happy, neutral) were directed at them. The results demonstrate a positive, linear relationship between self-reported social anxiety and stronger self-directed perception of others' gaze directions, particularly for negative (angry, fearful) and neutral expressions. Furthermore, faster responding was found for gaze more clearly directed at socially anxious individuals (0°, 2°, and 4°) suggesting a tendency to avoid direct gaze. In sum, the results illustrate an altered self-directed perception of subtle gaze cues. The possibly amplifying effects of social stress on biased self-directed perception of eye gaze are discussed.