Abstract:
It has been claimed that stimuli signaling threat are processed rapidly and
draw our attention (e.g., Fox, Russo, & Dutton, 2002). Similarly, it has been
argued that expressions of fear have a strong pull on our attention because
they signal threat (e.g., Phelps, Ling, & Carrasco, 2006; Vuilleumier &
Schwartz, 2001). The present study used a cuing paradigm to examine
whether fearful facial expressions capture attention involuntarily (i.e.,
automatically), even when they are irrelevant.
We asked participants to find a letter in a particular color (red or green) and
indicate whether it was a “T” or an “L”. Prior to the target display, a cue
display was presented. In the face cue condition, one fearful face and one
neutral face appeared on opposite sides of the display. In the color cue
condition, one green box and one red box appeared on opposite sides of
the display (see Figure 1). In both cue conditions, the stimuli (faces and
boxes) are irrelevant to the task at hand – identifying letters.
Previous cuing studies have concluded that if a participant is looking for a
particular color to find the target letter, then other objects in the cue display
containing this same color will capture attention. For example, when looking
for a red letter, a red box will capture attention. This conclusion is based on
the cue validity effect – the finding that response time (RT) is shorter and
proportion of error (PE) is smaller when the target appears in the same
location as the color cue drawn in the target color than when it appeared in a
different location. Stimuli in other colors do not produce a cue validity effect.
