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.     

Angry facial expressions hamper subsequent target identification

There is considerable evidence indicating that people are primed to monitor social signals of disapproval. Thus far, studies on selective attention have concentrated predominantly on the spatial domain, whereas the temporal consequences of identifying socially threatening information have received only scant attention. Therefore, this study focused on temporal attention costs and examined how the presentation of emotional expressions affects subsequent identification of task-relevant information. High (n = 30) and low (n = 31) socially anxious women were exposed to a dual-target rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm. Emotional faces (neutral, happy, angry) were presented as the first target (T1) and neutral letter stimuli (p, q, d, b) as the second target (T2). Irrespective of social anxiety, the attentional blink was relatively large when angry faces were presented as T1. This apparent prioritized processing of angry faces is consistent with evolutionary models, stressing the importance of being especially attentive to potential signals of social threat.     

The attentional processes underlying impaired inhibition of threat in anxiety: The remote distractor effect

The current study explored the proposition that anxiety is associated with impaired inhibition of threat. Using a modified version of the remote distractor paradigm, we considered whether this impairment is related to attentional capture by threat, difficulties disengaging from threat presented within foveal vision, or difficulties orienting to task-relevant stimuli when threat is present in central, parafoveal and peripheral locations in the visual field. Participants were asked to direct their eyes towards and identify a target in the presence and absence of a distractor (an angry, happy or neutral face). Trait anxiety was associated with a delay in initiating eye movements to the target in the presence of central, parafoveal and peripheral threatening distractors. These findings suggest that elevated anxiety is linked to difficulties inhibiting task-irrelevant threat presented across a broad region of the visual field.     

The attentional processes underlying impaired inhibition of threat in anxiety: the remote distractor effect

The current study explored the proposition that anxiety is associated with impaired inhibition of threat. Using a modified version of the remote distractor paradigm, we considered whether this impairment is related to attentional capture by threat, difficulties disengaging from threat presented within foveal vision, or difficulties orienting to task-relevant stimuli when threat is present in central, parafoveal and peripheral locations in the visual field. Participants were asked to direct their eyes towards and identify a target in the presence and absence of a distractor (an angry, happy or neutral face). Trait anxiety was associated with a delay in initiating eye movements to the target in the presence of central, parafoveal and peripheral threatening distractors. These findings suggest that elevated anxiety is linked to difficulties inhibiting task-irrelevant threat presented across a broad region of the visual field.     

Trait anxiety,anxious mood,and threat detection

Abstract

Subjects were required to detect either an angry or a happy target face in a stimulus array of 12 photographs. It was found with neutral distractor faces that those high in trait anxiety detected angry faces faster than did low trait-anxious subjects, but the two groups did not differ in their speed of detection of happy targets. In addition, high trait-anxious subjects detected happy target faces slower than low trait-anxious subjects when the distractor faces were angry. Comparable findings were obtained whether or not there was anxious mood induction. It was concluded that high trait-anxious individuals have facilitated detection and processing of environmental threat relative to low trait-anxious subjects, which enhance performance when the target is threatening, but which impair performance when the distractors are threatening.     

The effects of emotion priming on visual search in socially anxious adults

This study examined the effects of emotion priming on visual search in participants characterised for different levels of social anxiety. Participants were primed with five facial emotions (angry, fear, happy, neutral, and surprised) and one scrambled face immediately prior to visual search trials involving finding a slanted coloured line amongst distractors, as reaction times and accuracy to target detection were recorded. Results suggest that for individuals low in social anxiety, being primed with an angry, surprised, or fearful face facilitated visual search compared to being primed with scrambled, neutral or happy faces. However, these same emotions degraded visual search in participants with high levels of social anxiety. This study expands on previous research on the impact of emotion on attention, finding that amongst socially anxious individuals, the effects of priming with threat extend beyond initial attention capture or disengagement, degrading later visual search.     

Angry faces are tracked more easily than neutral faces during multiple identity tracking

We investigated whether and how emotional facial expressions affect sustained attention in face tracking. In a multiple-identity and object tracking paradigm, participants tracked multiple target faces that continuously moved around together with several distractor faces, and subsequently reported where each target face had moved to. The emotional expression (angry, happy, and neutral) of the target and distractor faces was manipulated. Tracking performance was better when the target faces were angry rather than neutral, whereas angry distractor faces did not affect tracking. The effect persisted when the angry faces were presented upside-down and when surface features of the faces were irrelevant to the ongoing task. There was only suggestive and weak evidence for a facilitatory effect of happy targets and a distraction effect of happy distractors in comparison to neutral faces. The results show that angry expressions on the target faces can facilitate sustained attention on the targets via increased vigilance, yet this effect likely depends on both emotional information and visual features of the angry faces.     

Anxiety and error monitoring: Increased error sensitivity or altered expectations?

This study tested the prediction that the error-related negativity (ERN), a physiological measure of error monitoring, would be enhanced in anxious individuals, particularly in conditions with threatening cues. Participants made gender judgments about faces whose expressions were either happy, angry, or neutral. Replicating prior studies, midline scalp negativities were greater following errors than following correct responses. In addition, state anxiety interacted with facial expression to predict ERN amplitudes. Counter to predictions, participants high in state anxiety displayed smaller ERNs for angry-face blocks and larger ERNs for happy-face blocks, compared to less anxious participants. These results are inconsistent with the simple notion that anxiety enhances error sensitivity globally. Rather, we interpret the findings within an expectancy violation framework, in which anxious participants have altered expectations for success and failure in the context of happy and angry facial cues, with greater ERN amplitudes when expectations are violated.     

Emotional facial expressions and the attentional blink: Attenuated blink for angry and happy faces irrespective of social anxiety

Although facial information is distributed over spatial as well as temporal domains, thus far research on selective attention to disapproving faces has concentrated predominantly on the spatial domain. This study examined the temporal characteristics of visual attention towards facial expressions by presenting a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) paradigm to high (n=33) and low (n=34) socially anxious women. Neutral letter stimuli (p, q, d, b) were presented as the first target (T1), and emotional faces (neutral, happy, angry) as the second target (T2). Irrespective of social anxiety, the attentional blink was attenuated for emotional faces. Emotional faces as T2 did not influence identification accuracy of a preceding (neutral) target. The relatively low threshold for the (explicit) identification of emotional expressions is consistent with the view that emotional facial expressions are processed relatively efficiently.     

高焦虑特质的注意偏向特点

采用“同中选异任务”范式,通过两个实验,检测了高、低焦虑特质在平静和焦虑状态下的注意敏感性和锁定特点。发现高焦虑特质对威胁信息并非特别敏感,而是一旦注意了,则锁定其中,难以摆脱。低焦虑特质则对快乐信息更敏感,而且更容易锁定其中,给予了更多的关注。研究推测,较高的状态焦虑,较容易产生紧张和焦虑,与高焦虑特质对威胁信息较强的注意锁定特点有密切关系     

“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.     

Temporal processing of emotional stimuli: the capture and release of attention by angry faces

Neuroimaging data suggest that emotional information, especially threatening faces, automatically captures attention and receives rapid processing. While this is consistent with the majority of behavioral data, behavioral studies of the attentional blink (AB) additionally reveal that aversive emotional first target (T1) stimuli are associated with prolonged attentional engagement or "dwell" time. One explanation for this difference is that few AB studies have utilized manipulations of facial emotion as the T1. To address this, schematic faces varying in expression (neutral, angry, happy) served as the T1 in the current research. Results revealed that the blink associated with an angry T1 face was, primarily, of greater magnitude than that associated with either a neutral or happy T1 face, and also that initial recovery from this processing bias was faster following angry, compared with happy, T1 faces. The current data therefore provide important information regarding the time-course of attentional capture by angry faces: Angry faces are associated with both the rapid capture and rapid release of attention.     

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.     

Effects of long-term meditation practice on attentional biases towards emotional faces: An eye-tracking study

Attentional biases towards affective stimuli reflect an individual balance of appetitive and aversive motivational systems. Vigilance in relation to threatening information reflects emotional imbalance, associated with affective and somatic problems. It is known that meditation practice significantly improves control of attention, which is considered to be a tool for adaptive emotional regulation. In this regard, the main aim of the present study was to evaluate the influence of meditation on attentional bias towards neutral and emotional facial expressions. Eyes were tracked while 21 healthy controls and 23 experienced meditators (all males) viewed displays consisting of four facial expressions (neutral, angry, fearful and happy) for 10 s. Measures of biases in initial orienting and maintenance of attention were assessed. No effects were found for initial orienting biases. Meditators spent significantly less time viewing angry and fearful faces than control subjects. Furthermore, meditators selectively attended to happy faces whereas control subjects showed attentional biases towards both angry and happy faces. In sum we can conclude that long-term meditation practice adaptively affects attentional biases towards motivationally significant stimuli and that these biases reflect positive mood and predominance of appetitive motivation.     

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.     

Unconscious facial reactions to emotional facial expressions

Studies reveal that when people are exposed to emotional facial expressions, they spontaneously react with distinct facial electromyographic (EMG) reactions in emotion-relevant facial muscles. These reactions reflect, in part, a tendency to mimic the facial stimuli. We investigated whether corresponding facial reactions can be elicited when people are unconsciously exposed to happy and angry facial expressions. Through use of the backward-masking technique, the subjects were prevented from consciously perceiving 30-ms exposures of happy, neutral, and angry target faces, which immediately were followed and masked by neutral faces. Despite the fact that exposure to happy and angry faces was unconscious, the subjects reacted with distinct facial muscle reactions that corresponded to the happy and angry stimulus faces. Our results show that both positive and negative emotional reactions can be unconsciously evoked, and particularly that important aspects of emotional face-to-face communication can occur on an unconscious level.     

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.     

Differences in startle reactivity during the perception of angry and fearful faces

Emotion researchers often categorize angry and fearful face stimuli as "negative" or "threatening". Perception of fear and anger, however, appears to be mediated by dissociable neural circuitries and often elicit distinguishable behavioral responses. The authors sought to elucidate whether viewing anger and fear expressions produce dissociable psychophysiological responses (i.e., the startle reflex). The results of two experiments using different facial stimulus sets (representing anger, fear, neutral, and happy) indicated that viewing anger was associated with a significantly heightened startle response (p < .05) relative to viewing fear, happy, and neutral. This finding suggests that while anger and fear faces convey messages of "threat", their priming effect on startle circuitry differs. Thus, angry expressions, representing viewer-directed threat with an unambiguous source (i.e., the expresser), may more effectively induce a motivational propensity to withdraw or escape. The source of threat is comparatively less clear for fearful faces. The differential effects of these two facial threat signals on the defensive motivational system adds to growing literature highlighting the importance of distinguishing between emotional stimuli of similar valence, along lines of meaning and functional impact.     

Identification of angry faces in the attentional blink

According to cognitive and neural theories of emotion, attentional processing of innate threat stimuli, such as angry facial expressions, is prioritised over neutral stimuli. To test this hypothesis, the present study used a modified version of the rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm to investigate the effect of emotional face stimuli on the attentional blink (AB). The target stimuli were schematic faces which depicted threatening (angry), positive or neutral facial expressions. Results showed that performance accuracy was enhanced (i.e., the AB was reduced) on trials in which the second target was an angry face, rather than a neutral face. Results extend previous research by demonstrating that angry faces reduce the AB, and that this effect is found for schematic facial expressions. These findings further support the proposal that, when there is competition for attentional resources, threat stimuli are given higher priority in processing compared with non-threatening stimuli.     

Detection of emotional expressions in rapidly changing facial displays in high- and low-socially anxious women

Facial information and attention to facial displays are distributed over spatial as well as temporal domains. Thus far, research on selective attention to (dis)approving faces in the context of social anxiety has concentrated primarily on the spatial domain. Using a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm, the present study examined the temporal characteristics of visual attention for happy and angry faces in high- (n=16) and low-socially anxious individuals (n=17), to test whether also in the temporal domain socially anxious individuals are characterized by threat-confirming attentional biases. Results indicated that presenting angry faces as the first target (T1) did not aggravate the detection of the emotional expression of the second target (T2). Yet, participants generally showed superior detection of the emotional expression of T2, if T2 was an angry face. Casting doubt on the role of such attenuated attentional blink for angry faces in social anxiety, no evidence emerged to indicate that this effect was relatively strong in high-socially anxious individuals. Finally, the presentation of an angry face as T2 resulted in a relatively hampered identification of a happy-T1. Again, this "backward blink" was not especially pronounced in high-socially anxious individuals. The present anger superiority effects are consistent with evolutionary models stressing the importance of being especially vigilant for signals of dominance. Since the effects were not especially pronounced in high-anxious individuals, the present study adds to previous findings indicating that socially anxious individuals are not characterized by a bias in the (explicit) detection of emotional expressions [Philippot, P., & Douilliez, C. (2005). Social phobics do not misinterpret facial expression of emotion. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 43, 639-652].