The face of wrath : how facial emotion captures visual attention

We look at the things that matter to us. We may rest our eyes on things that attract us, stare at something horrifying, or glare at someone we dislike: things that affect us emotionally are also things that capture our visual attention. Indeed, a general and central role of emotion is to emphasize things in the environment that are significant to us, and thus influence how we direct our attention and actions. The aim of this thesis was to examine the relation between facially conveyed emotion and visual attention.

In Study I and II, we (Lundqvist, Esteves, & Öhman, 1999; 2004) examined how different facial features are involved in conveying facial emotion, specifically in conveying a threatening or friendly emotional impression. In the two studies, a total of 201 participants rated their emotional impression of different schematic facial stimuli, using semantic differential scales (Activity, Negative Valence and Potency). The results showed that the shape of the eyebrows has a dominating effect on the emotional impression of a face, but also that the shapes of the mouth and the eyes modulate the effect of eyebrows and thus clearly contribute to the emotional impression of a face. Thus, to specifically convey a threatening impression, v-shaped eyebrows are the best means, especially in combination with ∩-shaped mouth. The data from Study I and II were interpreted in an evolutionary perspective on human facial expressions and emotions, and discussed in relation to face processing and signal evolution theory.

In Study III and IV, we (Öhman, Lundqvist, & Esteves, 2001; Lundqvist, & Öhman, submitted) investigated the relation between emotion and attention, by using different facial emotional stimuli in a visual search task, we collected data on how a total of 212 participants searched for discrepant faces in arrays of otherwise identical faces. By comparing how different schematic threatening and friendly faces affected attention, we tested the hypothesis that humans preferentially orient attention towards threatening information. In Study IV, participants also rated their emotional impression of the different facial stimuli.

The results showed that, in terms of shorter response latencies and higher response accuracy, threatening faces were detected more efficiently than friendly faces. The threat-advantage was maintained across a range of experimental conditions, and was even demonstrated for facial stimuli in which only one facial feature (eyebrows, mouth or eyes) conveyed the facial emotion. A closer analysis of the covariation of emotion and attention measures in Study IV showed that visual attention to faces was closely related to the emotional properties of the stimuli, and thus suggested that the emotional impression of a facial stimulus regulates how that face affects attention.

The data from Study III and IV were viewed against a background of visual perception and visual attention theories, and were interpreted in relation to face processing and emotion theory.

List of scientific papers

I. Lundqvist D, Esteves F, Ohman A (1999). The face of wrath: Critical features for conveying facial threat. Cognition and Emotion. 13: 691-711.

II. Lundqvist D, Esteves F, Ohman A (2003). The face of wrath: The role of features and configurations in conveying facial threat. Cognition and Emotion.

III. Ohman A, Lundqvist D, Esteves F (2001). The face in the crowd revisited: a threat advantage with schematic stimuli. J Pers Soc Psychol. 80(3): 381-96.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11300573

IV. Ohman A, Lundqvist D (2003). Emotion regulates attention: The relation between facial configurations, facial emotion and visual attention. [Submitted]