Attentional cueing: Fearful body postures capture attention with saccades

Abstract

According to theories of attention and emotion, threat-related stimuli (e.g., negative facial expressions) capture and hold attention. Despite these theories, previous examination of attentional cueing by threat showed no enhanced capture at brief durations. One explanation for the absence of attentional capture effects may be related to the sensitivity of the manual response measure employed. Here we extended beyond facial expressions and investigated the time course of orienting attention towards fearful body postures in the exogenous cueing task. Cue duration (20, 40, 60, or 100 ms), orientation (upright or inverted), and response mode (saccadic eye movement or manual keypress) were manipulated across three experiments. In the saccade mode, both enhanced attentional capture and impaired disengagement from fearful bodies were evident and limited to rapid cue durations (20 and 40 ms), suggesting that saccadic cueing effects emerge rapidly and are short lived. In the manual mode, fearful bodies impacted only upon the disengagement component of attention at 100 ms, suggesting that manual cueing effects emerge over longer periods of time. No cueing modulation was found for inverted presentation, suggesting that valence, not low-level image confounds, was responsible for the cueing effects. Importantly, saccades could reveal threat biases at brief cue durations consistent with current theories of emotion and attention.

Distracted by danger: Temporal and spatial dynamics of visual selection in the presence of threat

“…This account is consistent with results from previous cueing studies. In these studies, an eye movement had to be made to one of two target locations that were previously cued with threatening or nonthreatening stimuli (Bannerman et al, 2010a(Bannerman et al, , 2010bSchmidt, Belopolsky, & Theeuwes, 2015). Both studies showed the tight coupling between a shift of spatial attention to a threatening stimulus and the direct influence on the oculomotor system.…”

“…Both studies showed the tight coupling between a shift of spatial attention to a threatening stimulus and the direct influence on the oculomotor system. For example, Bannerman et al (2010aBannerman et al ( , 2010b showed that a briefly presented threatening peripheral cue decreased saccade latency relative to a nonthreatening cue when an eye movement had to be executed to a target presented at the same location (valid cue) and increased saccade latency when the target was presented at the opposite location (invalid cue). Likewise, Schmidt et al (2015) showed that a peripherally presented threatening stimulus interfered with subsequent endogenously driven saccades; a decrease in saccade latency when a saccade had to be executed to the location previously cued with a threatening stimulus relative to a nonthreatening stimulus, and an increase in saccade latency when a saccade had to be executed away from that location.…”

Evidence from the eyes: Threatening postures hold attention

“…In fact, an experiment by Bannerman, Milders, and Sahraie (2010) that reported attentional capture by fearful postures also revealed impaired disengagement in an exogenous cueing task at the shortest cue duration (20 ms). However, their study only looked at individuals reporting normal levels of trait anxiety, potentially missing any information regarding the modulatory role of anxiety that has so often been seen in prior investigations.…”

Watch out! Directional threat-related postures cue attention and the eyes

“…On invalid trials, state-anxious individuals took longer to respond when the cue was an angry face as opposed to a neutral or happy face, suggesting difficulty in disengaging attention from threatening facial expressions. Delayed disengagement has also been observed in response to threat-related words (Fox, Russo, Bowles, & Dutton, 2001), fearful faces (Georgiou et al, 2005), and more recently, direct facing threatening postures (Bannerman, Milders, & Sahraie, 2010). Although often seen only in anxious populations, Belopolsky, Devue, and Theeuwes (2011) found impaired disengagement of overt attention from angry faces in the general population using eye tracking, a measure with greater sensitivity than the more traditionally used measure of manual reaction time.…”

“…Evidence from visual search paradigms reveal an advantage in the rate and accuracy for detecting threatening faces amongst distractors compared to neutral or happy faces (Öhman, Lundqvist, & Esteves, 2001), as well as for snakes and spiders (Öhman, Flykt, & Esteves, 2001) and threatening postures (Bannerman et al, 2010;Gilbert, Martin, & Coulson, 2011). Because of attentional mechanisms that are efficient and automatic (Pratto & John, 1991), humans are particularly well suited for detecting threat in the environment.…”