The face-in-the-crowd effect: When angry faces are just cross(es)

Abstract

A common theme running through much of the visual recognition literature is that faces are special. Many studies now describe evidence for the idea that faces are processed in a dedicated center in cortex. Studies have also argued for the presence of evolutionarily expedient pathways dedicated to the processing of certain facial expressions. Evidence for this proposal comes largely from visual search tasks which have established that threatening expressions are more rapidly detected than other expressions: the 'face-in-the-crowd effect'. One open criticism of this effect is that it may be due to low-level visual artifacts, rather than biological preparedness. One attempt at controlling low-level differences has been to use schematic line-drawing versions of faces. This study aimed to discover if there might be alternative issues with schematic stimuli. The first study replicated the face-in-the-crowd threat advantage for schematic faces, but also measured a comparable effect using stimuli comprised of obliquely oriented lines. Similar results were achieved with these stimuli rotated, which had the effect of removing any residual resemblance to a face. The results suggest that low-level features probably underlie the face-in-the-crowd effect described for schematic face images, thereby undermining evidence for a search advantage for specific facial expressions.

Visuomotor integration of relevant and irrelevant angry and fearful facial expressions

“…Indeed, a great debate has long divided psychologists (e.g., Coelho, Cloete, & Wallis, 2010;Goffaux & Rossion, 2006): What is really processed when attention is directed toward a face in general, or an emotional face in particular: the local features or the face as a whole? Arguments in favor of both sides coexist (e.g., Calvo & Nummenmaa, 2008;Horstmann, Becker, Bergmann, & Burghaus, 2010).…”

Still another confounded face in the crowd

“…All the nonaffect, low-level feature models for the pseudo-ASE provide that a facial surround is necessary to obtain the effect. Two of the nonaffect models postulate that a pseudo-ASE is due to an absolute advantage for angry features that comes about because of an interaction between the outward pointing eyebrow and mouth features with the facial surround (Calvo & Nummenmaa, 2008;Coelho et al, 2010). Calvo and Nummenmaa argue that the facial surround renders the angry features as being more distinctive, relative to happy and neutral features.…”

“…There are equally plausible alternative explanations, however. The schematic face effect may to be due to low-level features that are unrelated to facial affect, but that give an advantage to angry features (Calvo & Nummenmaa, 2008;Coelho et al, 2010). Alternatively,…”

Audiomotor integration of angry and happy prosodies

“…First, binding effects could be more important for angry voices than happy voices. Indeed, several experiments showed that anger, as a threat-related stimulus, more easily captured attention than happiness did (e.g., Coelho, Cloete, & Wallis, 2010;Ohman, Lundqvist, & Esteves, 2001;Pinkham, Griffin, Baron, Sasson, & Gur, 2010;Weymar et al 2011), an effect called anger superiority effect (Hansen & Hansen, 1988). Moreover, flashbulb memories, which are rated as more negative in valence than everyday memories (Talarico & Rubin, 2003), tended to be more consistently remembered when they were negative than when they were positive (Kensinger & Schacter, 2006).…”