Anxiety modulates the degree of attentive resources required to process emotional faces

Abstract

The present study contributes to the ongoing debate over the extent to which attentive resources are required for emotion perception. Although fearful facial expressions are strong competitors for attention, we predict that the magnitude of this effect may be modulated by anxiety. To test this hypothesis, healthy volunteers who varied in their self-reported levels of trait and state anxiety underwent an attentional blink task. Both fearful and happy facial expressions were subject to a strong attentional blink effect for low-anxious individuals. For those reporting high anxiety, a blink occurred for both fearful and happy facial expressions, but the magnitude of the attentional blink was significantly reduced for the fearful expressions. This supports the proposals that emotion perception is not fully automatic and that anxiety is related to a reduced ability to inhibit the processing of threat-related stimuli. Thus, individual differences in self-reported anxiety are an important determinant of the attentional control of emotional processing.

Temporal processing of emotional stimuli: The capture and release of attention by angry faces.

“…Consistent with this, delayed disengagement or 'threat dwelling' is associated with longer reaction times in both visual search and visual probe paradigms (e.g. Georgiou et al 2005;Hahn, Carlson, Singer & Gronlund, 2006).…”

An electrophysiological investigation into the automaticity of emotional face processing in high versus low trait anxious individuals

“…Behavioral research into the effects of anxiety on emotion-attention interactions has revealed a greater tendency for individuals who were high as opposed to low in either clinical or nonclinical trait anxiety to orient and to sustain attention toward the location of angry or fearful faces (for reviews, see BarHaim, Lamy, Pergamin, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & van Ijzendoorn, 2007;Fox, 2004;Mogg & Bradley, 2004). Moreover, Fox et al (2005) revealed that high-anxiety participants were more likely to detect fearful faces in an attentional blink task than were low-anxiety participants. These results are suggestive of enhanced automaticity of emotion processing in anxious individuals.…”

“…Fox, Russo, and Georgiou (2005) suggested that variation in anxiety may be a key factor in determining the extent to which emotion processing occurs automatically and independently of attention. Behavioral research into the effects of anxiety on emotion-attention interactions has revealed a greater tendency for individuals who were high as opposed to low in either clinical or nonclinical trait anxiety to orient and to sustain attention toward the location of angry or fearful faces (for reviews, see BarHaim, Lamy, Pergamin, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & van Ijzendoorn, 2007;Fox, 2004;Mogg & Bradley, 2004).…”

Orienting to threat: faster localization of fearful facial expressions and body postures revealed by saccadic eye movements

“…Behaviourally, visual search, dot-probe, and attentional blink tasks have found that threat-related stimuli capture attention. For instance, participants are faster to detect fearful or angry faces among distracters than neutral or happy faces ( Fox et al 2000;Lundqvist & Ö hman 2005), faster to respond to probes that replace threatening faces (Bradley et al 1998(Bradley et al , 2000Mogg & Bradley 1999) and are more likely to perceive threat-related faces ( Fox et al 2005;Milders et al 2006;Maratos et al 2008). Neuropsychological studies suggest that this attentional modulation is associated with increased activation of the limbic structures, including the amygdala and the visual cortices (LeDoux 1996), with very brief presentation of threat (Morris et al 1998).…”