A threatening face in the crowd: Effects of emotional singletons on visual working memory.

Abstract

Faces with threatening versus positive expressions are better remembered in visual working memory (WM) and are especially effective at capturing attention. We asked how the presence of a single threatening or happy face affects WM for concurrently viewed faces with neutral expressions. If threat captures attention and attention determines WM, then a WM performance cost for neutral faces should be evident. However, if threat boosts processing in an object-specific, noncompetitive manner, then no such costs should be produced. Participants viewed three neutral and one angry or happy face for 2 s. Face recognition was tested 1 s later. Although WM was better for singletons than nonsingletons and better for angry versus happy singletons, WM for neutral faces remained unaffected by either singleton. These results, combined with eye movement and response time analyses, argue against a selective attention account of threat-based benefits to WM and support object-specific enhancement via threat processing.

Eye gaze influences working memory for happy but not angry faces

“…Why is there such dissociation between emotion-gaze interaction effects in WM versus LTM? As discussed earlier, using only direct gaze faces a happy face benefit in LTM has been established (e.g., D'Argembeau and Van der Linden, 2007;Liu et al, 2014;Shimamura et al, 2006) while an angry face benefit exists in WM (Jackson et al, , 2009(Jackson et al, , 2014Thomas et al, 2014). The happy benefit in LTM is thought to exist to facilitate the creation and maintenance on prosocial affiliations over time, while the angry benefit in WM is thought to reflect an effective and immediate response to social or physical threat.…”

“…In WM, however, a threat benefit is found. Using a simple delayed discrimination task where participants were required to state whether a test face was present or not a second or so earlier, WM was significantly enhanced when the faces encoded into WM conveyed an angry versus happy or neutral expression (Jackson, Linden, & Raymond, 2014;Jackson, Wolf, Johnston, Raymond, & Linden, 2008;Jackson, Wu, Linden, & Raymond, 2009;Thomas, Jackson, & Raymond, 2014; see also Sessa, Luria, Gotler, Jolicoeur, &Dell'acqua, 2011, andStiernströmer, Wolgast, &Johansson, 2015). This angry benefit in WM is thought to reflect a survival response that triggers more detailed or elaborate encoding of threatening information in order to facilitate an appropriate, immediate response.…”

Perception of emotion in facial stimuli: The interaction of ADRA2A and COMT genotypes, and sex

“…27 remembered better (Öhman et al, 2001;Thomas et al, 2014), but there other theories, such as the arousal-biased competition of information in perception and memory (Mather and Sutherland, 2011). In general, the mechanisms how emotional stimuli are perceived and encoded are still to be described.…”

Face working memory deficits in developmental prosopagnosia: Tests of encoding limits and updating processes

“…Without a functioning WM system we could not read, follow a conversation, or keep track of social interactions. While WM has been extensively studied over the decades using non-face stimuli (for overviews see Baddeley, 2012, andLogie &Cowan, 2015), WM for faces has only more recently been examined (Curby & Gauthier, 2007;Eng, Chen, & Jiang, 2005;Meconi, Luria, & Sessa, 2014;Scolari, Vogel, & Awh, 2008) and predominantly in the context of emotional expression effects on WM accuracy (Becker, Mortensen, Anderson, & Sasaki, 2014;Jackson, Linden, & Raymond, 2012Jackson, Wolf, Johnston, Raymond, & Linden, 2008;Jackson, Wu , Linden, & Raymond, 2009;Sessa, Luria, Gotler, Jolicoeur, & Dell'acqua, 2011;Stiernströmer, Wolgast, & Johansson, 2015;Thomas, Jackson, & Raymond, 2014).…”