Anxiety and orienting of gaze to angry and fearful faces

Karin Mogg,Matthew Garner,Brendan P Bradley

doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2007.07.005

Abstract

Neuroscience research indicates that individual differences in anxiety may be attributable to a neural system for threat-processing, involving the amygdala, which modulates attentional vigilance, and which is more sensitive to fearful than angry faces. Complementary cognitive studies indicate that high-anxious individuals show enhanced visuospatial orienting towards angry faces, but it is unclear whether fearful faces elicit a similar attentional bias. This study compared biases in initial orienting of gaze to fearful and angry faces, which varied in emotional intensity, in high- and low-anxious individuals. Gaze was monitored whilst participants viewed a series of face-pairs. Results showed that fearful and angry faces elicited similar attentional biases. High-anxious individuals were more likely to direct gaze at intense negative facial expressions, than low-anxious individuals, whereas the groups did not differ in orienting to mild negative expressions. Implications of the findings for research into the neural and cognitive bases of emotion processing are discussed.

Highlights

Research into the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying emotion processing indicates neural circuitry, involving subcortical and cortical structures, which is responsible for detecting threatrelated cues in the environment and triggering a variety of cognitive, behavioural and physiological responses, in particular, attentional vigilance (LeDoux, 1996; Davis and Whalen, 2001)
The present findings indicate that fearful and angry faces elicited similar biases in visuospatial orienting
Greater tendency for participants to direct gaze initially towards faces with moderate or intense threat-related facial expressions (50–100% intensity), relative to neutral faces, whereas mild threat-related facial expressions (25% intensity) did not elicit a bias in initial orienting. Visuospatial orienting to both fearful and angry faces was significantly influenced by individual differences in anxiety: high-anxious individuals showed a greater tendency to direct gaze at prototypical (100%) threat-related faces, irrespective of whether the faces depicted fear or anger

Summary

Introduction

Research into the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying emotion processing indicates neural circuitry, involving subcortical and cortical structures (including the amygdala and prefrontal cortex), which is responsible for detecting threatrelated cues in the environment and triggering a variety of cognitive, behavioural and physiological responses, in particular, attentional vigilance (LeDoux, 1996; Davis and Whalen, 2001). Cognitive models of anxiety assume the existence of a threat-processing system and propose that anxiety is characterized by cognitive biases (in particular, in stimulus evaluation and selective attention) which favour the processing of threat cues. These biases are proposed to be responsible for individual differences in anxiety vulnerability (e.g., Beck and Emery, 1985; Williams et al, 1997; Mogg and Bradley, 1998). Research into cognitive models of anxiety indicates that anxious individuals have an enhanced attentional bias for threat cues, compared with nonanxious individuals, and that this bias operates in early aspects of processing (e.g., review by Mogg and Bradley, 1998)

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