Anxiety and sensitivity to eye gaze in emotional faces

Holmes, Amanda; Richards, Angela; Green, Samuel

doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2005.05.002

Cited by 96 publications

(132 citation statements)

References 75 publications

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“…Previous studies showed that the GOE enhancement for negative emotions such as fear or anger was dependant on the anxiety or fearfulness of the participants (Fox et al, 2007;Holmes et al, 2006;Mathews et al 2003;Putman et al, 2006;Tipples, 2006). In contrast, the present study shows a modulation of the GOE with fear, anger, and surprise in non-anxious participants, replicating recent findings (Neath et al, 2013) and extending them, for the first time, to angry faces.…”

Section: Goe Modulation By Emotionssupporting

confidence: 88%

“…Most importantly, it allowed for testing the idea that anger can enhance the GOE compared to neutral faces when fear is not included in the design. At the behavioral level, in accordance with previous studies (Bayless et al, 2011;Holmes et al, 2006;Neath et al, 2013), we predicted that (i) relative to neutral faces, the GOE would be larger for fearful and surprised faces and (ii) angry faces would enhance the GOE compared to neutral and happy faces. Regarding ERP modulations, at target presentation, we expected to replicate the congruency effects on P1 and N1 components and predicted larger modulations of these effects for fearful, surprised, and angry expressions compared to neutral expressions, reflecting an enhancement of the early visual processing of the target for these emotions.…”

supporting

confidence: 88%

“…As a result, the effect of anger on the GOE could have been masked in experiments including fearful faces. One study in which fearful faces were not included did report an increase of the GOE with anger compared with neutral and happy faces, but only in high-anxious participants (Holmes et al, 2006). The lack of effect reported in low-anxious individuals in this study might be due to the use of a discrimination task.…”

Section: Goe Modulation By Emotionscontrasting

confidence: 61%

“…However, in these studies, fearful faces were always included. In one experiment in which fearful faces were not presented, angry faces actually enhanced the GOE compared with joyful and neutral expressions in high-anxious individuals (Holmes, Richards, & Green, 2006). Although these results need to be extended to a non-anxious population, they suggest that the modulation of the GOE by emotions may rely on the relative rather than absolute valence of an emotion.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 80%

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Fearful, surprised, happy, and angry facial expressions modulate gaze-oriented attention: Behavioral and ERP evidence

Lassalle

Itier

2013

Social Neuroscience

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The impact of emotions on gaze-oriented attention was investigated in non-anxious participants. A neutral face cue with straight gaze was presented, which then averted its gaze to the side while remaining neutral or expressing an emotion (fear/surprise in Exp.1 and anger/happiness in Exp.2). Localization of a subsequent target was faster at the gazed-at location (congruent condition) than at the non-gazed-at location (incongruent condition). This Gaze-Orienting Effect (GOE) was enhanced for fear, surprise, and anger, compared to neutral expressions which did not differ from happy expressions. In addition, Event Related Potentials (ERPs) to the target showed a congruency effect on P1 for fear and surprise and a left lateralized congruency effect on P1 for happy faces, suggesting that target visual processing was also influenced by attention to gaze and emotions. Finally, at cue presentation, early postero-lateral (Early Directing Attention Negativity (EDAN)) and later antero-lateral (Anterior Directing Attention Negativity (ADAN)) attentionrelated ERP components were observed, reflecting, respectively, the shift of attention and its holding at gazed-at locations. These two components were not modulated by emotions. Together, these findings show that the processing of social signals such as gaze and facial expression interact rather late and in a complex manner to modulate spatial attention. KeywordsGaze orienting; Attention; ERPs; Emotions Gaze direction is a crucial non-verbal cue, which we use to determine where and what others are attending. It can also direct another's attention toward an object, a phenomenon called joint attention, which helps assess others' intentions and understand their behaviors (BaronCohen, 1995).Joint attention is typically studied using a modified version of the Posner cuing paradigm (Posner, 1980), in which a central face cue with averted gaze is followed by a lateral target. Congruent trials in which the target appears at the gazed-at location are responded to faster than incongruent trials in which the target appears at the opposite side of gaze. The response time difference between congruent and incongruent trials reflects the orienting of attention toward gaze direction (Friesen & Kingstone, 1998). This robust Gaze Orienting Effect (GOE) was shown for letter discrimination, target detection, or localization tasks, for Stimulus Onset Asynchronies (SOAs) up to 700 ms, and when the cue is non-predictive or even counter-predictive of the target location (for a review, see Frischen, Bayliss, & Tipper, 2007 Many studies have investigated whether emotions modulate attention orienting by gaze. A GOE increase with fearful compared to neutral and/or happy faces has been reported and interpreted as reflecting the evolutionary advantage to orient rapidly in the direction of a potential threat (Bayless, Glover, Taylor, & Itier, 2011;Fox, Mathews, Calder, & Yiend, 2007;Graham, Friesen, Fichtenholtz, & LaBar, 2010;Mathews, Fox, Yiend, & Calder, 2003;Pecchinenda, Pes, Ferlazzo, & Zoccolo...

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Section: Goe Modulation By Emotionssupporting

confidence: 88%

supporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Goe Modulation By Emotionscontrasting

confidence: 61%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 80%

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Fearful, surprised, happy, and angry facial expressions modulate gaze-oriented attention: Behavioral and ERP evidence

Lassalle

Itier

2013

Social Neuroscience

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“…Despite this, some reflexive gaze-cueing experiments with emotional faces have not found convincing evidence of an interaction between gaze and emotion processing (Hietanen & Leppänen, 2003;Hori et al, 2005). Others have only found evidence of gaze and emotion interactions after individual differences in fearfulness or anxiety have been taken into account (e.g., Holmes, Richards, & Green, 2006;Mathews, Fox, Yiend, & Calder, 2003;Putman, Hermans, & van Honk, 2006;Tipples, 2006). In summary, behavioral research examining gaze influences on emotion suggest that gaze and expression processing are integrated (e.g., Senju & Hasegawa, 2005), but research examining emotional influences on reflexive orienting to gaze direction (e.g., Hietanen & Leppänen, 2003) suggests otherwise.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Garner interference reveals dependencies between emotional expression and gaze in face perception.

Graham¹,

LaBar²

2007

Emotion

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The relationship between facial expression and gaze processing was investigated with the Garner selective attention paradigm. In Experiment 1, participants performed expression judgments without interference from gaze, but expression interfered with gaze judgments. Experiment 2 replicated these results across different emotions. In both experiments, expression judgments occurred faster than gaze judgments, suggesting that expression was processed before gaze could interfere. In Experiments 3 and 4, the difficulty of the emotion discrimination was increased in two different ways. In both cases, gaze interfered with emotion judgments and vice versa. Furthermore, increasing the difficulty of the emotion discrimination resulted in gaze and expression interactions. Results indicate that expression and gaze interactions are modulated by discriminability. Whereas expression generally interferes with gaze judgments, gaze direction modulates expression processing only when facial emotion is difficult to discriminate.

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