Facial Expression and Gaze-triggered Attention : Effects of Anxiety and Consistency of Facial Expression

This study investigated whether a fearful expression enhance orienting to the direction of eye gaze, and the contribution of individual differences in trait, state, and social anxiety. We used a spatial cuing paradigm in which fearful and neutral faces with right and left gaze were presented as cues. Moreover, we examined whether habituation to fearful faces affects on the gaze-triggered attention in two conditions; one in which a fearful or neutral expression was consistently presented in a block, and another in which two expressions were presented randomly. Twenty-eight participants asked to respond by pressing a left or right key depending on where a target was presented. Fearful expressions enhanced orienting to the direction of eye gaze. However, participants with lower social anxiety and those with lower trait anxiety didn't show gaze cuing effect on neutral expression in longer SOA. The way how facial expression presented in the block didn't affect on the gaze-triggered attention. Thus, this study indicated that the gazetriggered attention could be modulated by emotional faces, but this emotional effect was not affected by habituations to facial expressions