Journal
EMOTION
Volume 6, Issue 1, Pages 94-102Publisher
AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC
DOI: 10.1037/1528-3542.6.1.94
Keywords
gaze; fearful expression; spatial attention; anxiety
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This Study investigated in 2 experiments whether reflexive Cuing of attention that occurs after perception of a gaze cue is greater for fearful than for happy faces in normal participants, as hypothesized from a social neuroscience perspective. To increase neuroecological validity, dynamic stimulus presentation was used to display faces that simultaneously morphed from a neutral expression into a happy or fearful one and shifted eye gaze from the center to the periphery. Shifts of attention resulting from a natural fearful gaze were expected to be related to participants' anxiety traits, in agreement with the often found increased selective attention to threat in anxious participants. Both hypotheses were confirmed: Fearful faces induced stronger gaze cuing than happy faces, and the strength Of this cuing effect was correlated to participants' anxiety levels. These results suggest a neural network, which integrates the processing of gaze, expression, and emotional states to adaptively prime vigilance under threatening circumstances.
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