Do emotionally expressive faces automatically capture attention? Evidence from global–local interference

Abstract

The present experiments investigated whether perception of a global face gestalt automatically interferes with processing of facial features. Upward- and downward-curved arcs were grouped into triplets to resemble faces with positive or negative expressions. The arcs were presented either in a uniform grey colour to facilitate global face perception or in mixed colours where individual arcs were coloured red to reduce global face perception. Experiments 1 and 2 induced a local processing orientation by requiring participants to count individual arc features. Negative face displays yielded slower and less accurate arc counting performance than positive face displays, but only when all arcs were the same colour. In Experiment 3, a global processing orientation was induced by requiring participants to count the number of arc triplets. This time, negative face displays yielded slower reaction times, regardless of feature colour. These results show that interference from emotional face gestalts is not automatic but can be eliminated and may depend on both attentional control settings and “bottom-up” stimulus attributes.