Facial Fear Processing and Attention

In this study, the role of attention in facial expression processing is investigated, especially as it relates to fearful facial expressions compared to happy facial expressions. Facial fear processing plays a critical role in human social interactions and survival, and this has previously been studied mainly in animal models. This study, however, was accomplished with the presentation of images of actors with happy and fearful facial expressions in three spatial frequency formats, as it is hypothesized that images at different spatial frequencies may be processed via different pathways. These images were presented to human participants in two experiments. In Experiment I, facial expression was task-relevant as participants were asked to discriminate between “happy” and “fear” expressions with reaction time (measured in seconds) and accuracy recorded. In Experiment II, facial expression was task-irrelevant, as participants were asked simply to discriminate between photographs of males and females, again with reaction time and accuracy recorded. Overall, the results comparing happy and fearful facial expressions in Experiment I were not significant. The results comparing happy and fearful facial expressions in Experiment II exhibited similar insignificant results except for accuracy in certain spatial frequencies, which were found to be significant. These results suggest that fearful facial expressions are processed more accurately than happy facial expressions when attention is focused on other variables in the image rather than when attention is focused on the facial expressions themselves.