Angry faces hold attention: Evidence of attentional adhesion in two paradigms

Becker, David V.; Rheem, Hansol; Pick, Cari M.; Ko, Ahra; Lafko, Stacie

doi:10.1016/bs.pbr.2019.03.033

Cited by 13 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…However, when angry emotion was contrasted with other negative emotions like fear and sadness, it produces an approach tendency (Paulus & Wentura, 2016). In the present study, angry faces were contrasted with happy faces, whicht may have activated the avoidance response and defensive motivational system that facilitates freezing behavior ("a statue-like inhibition of movement" (Facchinetti et al, 2006;Lang & Bradley, 2013;Lang et al, 2000) and may have held attention (Becker et al, 2019), which in turn facilitated response inhibition. These explanations are consistent with the prediction of the "Approach and avoidance framework."…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 60%

Only irrelevant angry, but not happy, expressions facilitate the response inhibition

Gupta

Singh

2020

Atten Percept Psychophys

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It has been debated that arousal rather than valence modulates the response-inhibition process. The processing of irrelevant information of happy and angry faces interacts with attention differently. In the present study, arousal-matched irrelevant happy and angry faces were used as stop-signals in the stop-signal paradigm. Participants were required to respond to go-signals (discriminate between X or O). Occasionally, a stop-signal was presented where participants were required to withhold their motor response. Results indicate a significant effect of emotion on response inhibition, which suggests that valence of a stopsignal modulates inhibitory control. More specifically, we found that only irrelevant angry, but not happy, expressions facilitate the response inhibition process. These results have theoretical implications for understanding the nature of emotions and its interaction with cognitive control functions.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 60%

Only irrelevant angry, but not happy, expressions facilitate the response inhibition

Gupta

Singh

2020

Atten Percept Psychophys

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“…That is, threatening primes could facilitate visual processing possibly based on evolutionary adaptive reasons to help survival. On the other hand, anxious individuals seem to have difficulty disengaging their attention from threatrelevant information, even when it is irrelevant (Amir, Elias, Klumpp, & Przeworski, 2003;Becker, Rheem, Pick, Ko, & Lafko, 2019). Similarly, if a task requires spatial information processing, non-anxious individuals might also experience these negative effects (Cisler, Bacon, & Williams, 2009;Koster et al, 2004;Mogg, Holmes, Garner, & Bradley, 2008).…”

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confidence: 99%

Disentangling the facilitating and hindering effects of threat‐related stimuli – A visual search study

Zsidó

Matuz

Inhóf

et al. 2019

British J of Psychology

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Although large body of research has demonstrated the attention-grabbing nature of threat-related stimuli, threat could also facilitate attentional processes. Previous studies suggest a linear relationship between the facilitating effect of the arousal level conveyed by threat and performance on visual search tasks. Due to the temporal competition bias favouring stimuli with higher arousal level, this could be more pronounced for shorter onset times. Here, through two experiments we aimed to disentangle the two effects by using a visual search paradigm that allowed us to separate the emotional stimuli and the cognitive task. We manipulated stimulus onset time and threat intensity. Participants saw neutral and threatening pictures as priming stimuli, and then, they had to find numbers in ascending order in a matrix array. We measured the reaction time for finding the first number, and search time for finding all the numbers. Our results showed that when the priming stimulus is presented, longer threatening pictures produced longer reaction times compared to neutral ones, which was reversed with increase in arousal. We did not find any significant effects for the shorter onset time. Further theoretical and methodological implications are discussed. Relevance and background of the study The study of attentional biases for threat has been a major theme in the research on the aetiology and maintenance of anxiety disorders (McNally, 2018). A large body of this research area demonstrated that threatening stimuli have a highlighted role in visual processing (

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“…or fearful) relative to faces with positive valence (e.g., happy) or neutral faces 97 . Consistent with this third possibility, we observed behavioral performance worst for fearful, best for happy, with neutral faces intermediate between the two.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Layer-specific, retinotopically-diffuse modulation in human visual cortex by emotional faces

Chai

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Emotionally expressive faces evoke enhanced neural responses in multiple brain regions, a phenomenon thought to depend critically on the amygdala. This emotion-related modulation is evident even in primary visual cortex (V1), providing a potential neural substrate by which emotionally salient stimuli can affect perception. How does emotional valence information, computed in the amygdala, reach V1? Here we use high-resolution functional MRI to investigate the layer profile and retinotopic distribution of neural activity specific to emotional facial expressions. Across three experiments, human participants viewed centrally presented face stimuli varying in emotional expression and performed a gender judgment task. We found that facial valence sensitivity was evident only in superficial cortical layers and was not restricted to the retinotopic location of the stimuli, consistent with diffuse feedback-like projections from the amygdala. Together, our results provide a feedback mechanism by which the amygdala directly modulates activity at the earliest stage of visual processing.

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Angry faces hold attention: Evidence of attentional adhesion in two paradigms

Cited by 13 publications

References 58 publications

Only irrelevant angry, but not happy, expressions facilitate the response inhibition

Only irrelevant angry, but not happy, expressions facilitate the response inhibition

Disentangling the facilitating and hindering effects of threat‐related stimuli – A visual search study

Layer-specific, retinotopically-diffuse modulation in human visual cortex by emotional faces

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