In search of the emotional face

Previous research has suggested that in crowds of faces angry faces are detected fastest, whereas, other research suggests that happy faces are found fastest. The current study aimed to explain some of these differences. Ninety-three first year psychology students completed a series of computer-based visual search tasks. Experiment 1 examined the effect of search strategy on search performance. Angry faces were found faster than happy faces during both fixed and variable target searches. Experiment 2 comprised a series of follow-up tasks assessing the effect of emotional non-targets and teeth displays on search performance. Faster detection of angry faces was still evident after the removal of emotional non-targets and when using closed-mouth stimuli. A third follow-up task revealed faster detection of happy faces when faces from a different stimulus set were used. These results suggest that differences in the literature cannot be entirely explained by search strategy, teeth displays, or presence of emotional non-targets, and demonstrate the influence of stimulus choice on the pattern of results