Stimulus and observer characteristics jointly determine the relevance of threatening facial expressions and their interaction with attention

Abstract

Most emotional stimuli, including facial expressions, are judged not only by their intrinsic characteristics, but also by the context in which they appear. Gaze direction, for example, modifies the salience of explicitly presented facial displays. Yet, it is unknown whether this effect persists when facial displays are no longer task-relevant. Here, we first varied the salience of fearful, angry or neutral displays using gaze direction, while participants performed a gender (attended faces) or a scene discrimination task (unattended faces). Best performance occurred when faces were unattended and emotional expressions were highly salient (direct anger and averted fear), suggesting that these combinations are sufficiently important to capture attention and enhance visual processing. In a second experiment, we transiently changed participants’ individual characteristics by instructing them to hold either expansive or constrictive postures. Best performance occurred for direct anger and averted fear following expansive and constrictive postures, respectively, demonstrating that stimulus and observer characteristics jointly determine the attribution of relevance of threatening facial expressions and their interaction with attention.