The involvement of distinct visual channels in rapid attention towards fearful facial expressions

Abstract

This paper reports five experiments demonstrating that the low spatial frequency components of faces are critical to the production of rapid attentional responses towards fearful facial expressions. In our main experiments, low spatial frequency (LSF) or high spatial frequency (HSF) face pairs, consisting of one fearful and one neutral expression, were presented on a computer screen for a brief period. Participants were required to identify as quickly as possible the orientation of a bar target that immediately replaced one of the faces. Responses were faster when targets replaced the location of LSF fearful faces, compared with LSF neutral faces. By contrast, there were no differences between responses to targets replacing HSF fearful versus HSF neutral faces. This facilitation in spatial orienting occurred specifically with short time intervals between faces and target, and is consistent with a rapid processing of fear cues from LSF inputs that can serve to guide attention towards threat events.