Abstract
In two experiments, participants counted features of schematic faces with positive, negative, or neutral emotional expressions. In Experiment 1 it was found that counting features took longer when they were embedded in negative as opposed to positive faces. Experiment 2 replicated the results of Experiment 1 and also demonstrated that more time was required to count features of negative relative to neutral faces. However, in both experiments, when the faces were inverted to reduce holistic face perception, no differences between neutral, positive, and negative faces were observed, even though the feature information in the inverted faces was the same as in the upright faces. We suggest that, relative to neutral and positive faces, negative faces are particularly effective at capturing attention to the global face level and thereby make it difficult to count the local features of faces.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Eastwood, J. D., Smilek, D., &Merikle, P. M. (2001). Differential attentional guidance by unattended faces expressing positive and negative emotion.Perception & Psychophysics,63, 1004–1013.
Filoteo, J. V., Friedrich, F. J., &Stricker, J. L. (2001). Shifting attention to different levels within global-local stimuli: A study of normal participants and a patient with temporal-parietal lobe damage.Cognitive Neuropsychology,18, 227–261.
Fox, E., Lester, V., Russo, R., Bowles, R. J., Pichler, A., &Dutton, K. (2000). Facial expressions of emotion: Are angry faces detected more efficiently?Cognition & Emotion,14, 61–92.
Gyoba, J., Arimura, M., &Maruyama, K. (1980). Visual identification of line segments embedded in human face patterns.Tohoku Psychologica Folia,39, 113–120.
Hansen, C. H., &Hansen, R. D. (1988). Finding the face in the crowd: An anger superiority effect.Journal of Personality & Social Psychology,54, 917–924.
Homa, D., Haver, B., &Schwartz, T. (1976). Perceptibility of schematic face stimuli: Evidence for a perceptual gestalt.Memory & Cognition,4, 176–185.
Köhler, W. (1940).Dynamics in psychology. New York: Liveright.
Meltzoff, A. N., &Moore, M. K. (1977). Imitation of facial and manual gestures by human neonates.Science,198, 75–78.
Mermelstein, R., Banks, W., &Prinzmetal, W. (1979). Figural goodness effects in perception and memory.Perception & Psychophysics,26, 472–480.
Morris, J. S., Öhman, A., &Dolan, R. J. (1998). Conscious and unconscious emotional learning in the human amygdala.Nature,393, 467–470.
Navon, D. (1977). Forest before trees: The precedence of global features in visual perception.Cognitive Psychology,9, 353–383.
Öhman, A., &Dimberg, U. (1978). Facial expressions as conditioned stimuli for electrodermal responses: A case of “preparedness”?Journal of Personality & Social Psychology,36, 1251–1258.
Öhman, A., Lundqvist, D., &Esteves, F. (2001). The face in the crowd revisited: A threat advantage with schematic stimuli.Journal of Personality & Social Psychology,80, 381–396.
Parks, T. E., Coss, R. G., &Coss, C. S. (1985). Thatcher and the Cheshire cat: Context and the processing of facial features.Perception,14, 747–754.
Rauschenberger, R., &Yantis, S. (2001). Attentional capture by globally defined objects.Perception & Psychophysics,63, 1250–1261.
Sackett, G. P. (1966). Monkeys reared in isolation with pictures as visual input: Evidence for an innate releasing mechanism.Science,154, 1468–1473.
Schneider, W. (1990).MEL users guide: Computer techniques for real-time experimentation. Pittsburgh: Psychology Software Tools.
Smilek, D., Eastwood, J. D., &Merikle, P. (2000). Does unattended information facilitate change detection?Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,26, 480–487.
Stenberg, G., Wilking, S., &Dahl, M. (1998). Judging words at face value: Interference in a word processing task reveals automatic processing of affective facial expressions.Cognition & Emotion,12, 755–782.
Suzuki, S., &Cavanagh, P. (1995). Facial organization blocks access to low-level features: An object inferiority effect.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,21, 901–913.
Van Santen, J. P. H., &Jonides, J. (1978). A replication of the facesuperiority effect.Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society,12, 378–380.
Van Selst, M., &Jolicoeur, P. (1994). A solution to the effect of sample size on outlier elimination.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,47A, 631–650.
Vuilleumier, P., Armony, J. L., Driver, J., &Dolan, R. J. (2001). Effects of attention and emotion on face processing in the human brain: An event-related fMRI study.Neuron,30, 1–20.
White, M. (1996). Anger recognition is independent of spatial attention.New Zealand Journal of Psychology,25, 30–35.
Wolfe, J. M. (1994). Guided Search 2.0: A revised model of visual search.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,1, 202–238.
Yantis, S. (1996). Attentional capture in vision. In A. F. Kramer, M. G.H. Coles, & G. D. Logan (Eds.),Converging operations in the study of visual selective attention (pp. 45–76). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Yin, R. K. (1969). Looking at upside-down faces.Journal of Experimental Psychology,81, 141–145.
Younge-Browne, G., Rosenfeld, H. M., &Horowitz, F. D. (1977). Infant discrimination of facial expressions.Child Development,48, 555–562.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This research was supported by a grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to P.M.M.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Eastwood, J.D., Smilek, D. & Merikle, P.M. Negative facial expression captures attention and disrupts performance. Perception & Psychophysics 65, 352–358 (2003). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194566
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194566