Visual search for faces with emotional expressions.

Frischen, Alexandra; Eastwood, John D.; Smilek, Daniel

doi:10.1037/0033-2909.134.5.662

Cited by 278 publications

(284 citation statements)

References 124 publications

(227 reference statements)

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“…A handful of studies have shown that animals (regardless of threat-relevance) are detected more quickly than plants [17][18][19] ; comparing snakes and spiders to other animals would rectify this potential issue [3][4] . Similar attention should be paid to choosing appropriate distracter stimuli for visual detection studies as threatening distracters have been shown to slow down participants when they are detecting non-threatening targets [20][21][22][23][24][25][26] . Using uniform distracters might help ensure that any differences found in detection can be attributed to the targets 7 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring Attentional Biases for Threat in Children and Adults

LoBue

2014

JoVE

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Investigators have long been interested in the human propensity for the rapid detection of threatening stimuli. However, until recently, research in this domain has focused almost exclusively on adult participants, completely ignoring the topic of threat detection over the course of development. One of the biggest reasons for the lack of developmental work in this area is likely the absence of a reliable paradigm that can measure perceptual biases for threat in children. To address this issue, we recently designed a modified visual search paradigm similar to the standard adult paradigm that is appropriate for studying threat detection in preschool-aged participants. Here we describe this new procedure. In the general paradigm, we present participants with matrices of color photographs, and ask them to find and touch a target on the screen. Latency to touch the target is recorded. Using a touch-screen monitor makes the procedure simple and easy, allowing us to collect data in participants ranging from 3 years of age to adults. Thus far, the paradigm has consistently shown that both adults and children detect threatening stimuli (e.g., snakes, spiders, angry/fearful faces) more quickly than neutral stimuli (e.g., flowers, mushrooms, happy/neutral faces). Altogether, this procedure provides an important new tool for researchers interested in studying the development of attentional biases for threat.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring Attentional Biases for Threat in Children and Adults

LoBue

2014

JoVE

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“…We used schematic face stimuli to minimize complications from expression ambiguity and lack of standardization associated with variations in photographic stimuli (Frischen, Eastwood, & Smilek, 2008). Target stimuli were positive ('happy') and negative ('sad') faces, and left-and right-pointing arrows inside a circle were equiprobable and randomized within each block, resulting in 50% congruent trials (target location at response hand) and 50% incongruent trials (target location opposite to response hand).…”

Section: Experiments 1 Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Look on the bright side: Positivity bias modulates interference effects in the simon task.

Schlaghecken

Blagrove

Mantantzis

et al. 2017

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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Negative faces are detected more quickly but categorized more slowly than positive faces.Using a Simon task, we examined stimulus-and response-related processes of this dissociation: if negative stimuli are both processed and responded to more quickly than positive ones, they should elicit reduced Simon effects. Conversely, if negative stimuli are processed more quickly but responded to more slowly, enlarged Simon effects should occur.Consistent with the first possibility, negative stimuli showed reduced Simon effects.Unexpectedly, this reduction transferred to neutral stimuli (arrows and pointing hands) requiring the same response as negative faces. This pattern suggests that spatial attention became biased toward the side associated with a positive-face response and away from the side associated with a negative-face response, demonstrating that, similar to higher level cognitive decision processes, even early attentional processes can be subject to a positivity bias ("Pollyanna effect").

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“…While improved search for faces with robust representations has been found (own face compared to unfamiliar faces, Tong & Nakayama, 1999), most studies using visual search paradigms for faces have focused on face "pop-out" in search such as detecting emotional faces (see Frischen, Eastwood, &,Smilek, (2008) for a review). Therefore, predictions about face search for unfamiliar faces and for multiple faces amongst distractor faces must come from experiments using stimuli other than faces.…”

Section: Dual-target Cost In Visual Search For Multiple Unfamiliar Facesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dual-target cost in visual search for multiple unfamiliar faces.

Mestry

Menneer

Cave

et al. 2017

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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The efficiency of visual search for one (single-target) and either of two (dual-target) unfamiliar faces was explored to understand the manifestations of capacity and guidance limitations in face search. The visual similarity of distractor faces to target faces was manipulated using morphing (Experiments 1 and 2) and multidimensional scaling (Experiment 3). A dual-target cost was found in all experiments, evidenced by slower and less accurate search in dual- than single-target conditions. The dual-target cost was unequal across the targets, with performance being maintained on one target and reduced on the other, which we label “preferred” and “non-preferred” respectively. We calculated the capacity for each target face and show reduced capacity for representing the non-preferred target face. However, results show that the capacity for the non-preferred target can be increased when the dual-target condition is conducted after participants complete the single-target conditions. Analyses of eye movements revealed evidence for weak guidance of fixations in single-target search, and when searching for the preferred target in dual-target search. Overall, the experiments show dual-target search for faces is capacity- and guidance-limited, leading to superior search for 1 face over the other in dual-target search. However, learning faces individually may improve capacity with the second face.

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Visual search for faces with emotional expressions.

Cited by 278 publications

References 124 publications

Measuring Attentional Biases for Threat in Children and Adults

Measuring Attentional Biases for Threat in Children and Adults

Look on the bright side: Positivity bias modulates interference effects in the simon task.

Dual-target cost in visual search for multiple unfamiliar faces.

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