Saccadic eye movements are deployed faster for salient facial stimuli, but are relatively indifferent to their emotional content

The present study explores the threat bias for fearful facial expressions using saccadic latency, with a particular focus on the role of low-level facial information, including spatial frequency and contrast. In a simple localisation task, participants were presented with spatially-filtered versions of neutral, fearful, angry and happy faces. Together, our findings show that saccadic responses are not biased toward fearful expressions compared to neutral, angry or happy counterparts, regardless of their spatial frequency content. Saccadic response times are, however, significantly influenced by the spatial frequency and contrast of facial stimuli. We discuss the implications of these findings for the threat bias literature, and the extent to which image processing can be expected to influence behavioural responses to socially-relevant facial stimuli.

Automated summary

The present study investigates the threat bias for fearful facial expressions using saccadic latency, focusing on low-level facial information such as spatial frequency and contrast. The study finds that saccadic responses are not biased towards fearful expressions but are significantly influenced by the spatial frequency and contrast of facial stimuli. These findings have important implications for the research on threat bias and behavioral responses to facial stimuli.