Emotion Unchained: Facial Expression Modulates Gaze Cueing Under Cognitive Load

Overview

Journal PLoS One

Specialties General Medicine
Science

Date 2016 Dec 14

PMID 27959925

Citations 14

Authors

Anna Pecchinenda

Manuel Petrucci

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Direction of eye gaze cues spatial attention, and typically this cueing effect is not modulated by the expression of a face unless top-down processes are explicitly or implicitly involved. To investigate the role of cognitive control on gaze cueing by emotional faces, participants performed a gaze cueing task with happy, angry, or neutral faces under high (i.e., counting backward by 7) or low cognitive load (i.e., counting forward by 2). Results show that high cognitive load enhances gaze cueing effects for angry facial expressions. In addition, cognitive load reduces gaze cueing for neutral faces, whereas happy facial expressions and gaze affected object preferences regardless of load. This evidence clearly indicates a differential role of cognitive control in processing gaze direction and facial expression, suggesting that under typical conditions, when we shift attention based on social cues from another person, cognitive control processes are used to reduce interference from emotional information.

Citing Articles

Cultural differences in joint attention and engagement in mutual gaze with a robot face.

Marchesi S, Abubshait A, Kompatsiari K, Wu Y, Wykowska A Sci Rep. 2023; 13(1):11689.

PMID: 37468517 PMC: 10356937. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-38704-7.

Valence moderates the effect of stimulus-hand proximity on conflict processing and gaze-cueing.

Hoffmann S, Fischer R, Liepelt R PeerJ. 2023; 11:e15286.

PMID: 37223118 PMC: 10202105. DOI: 10.7717/peerj.15286.

Wearing the face mask affects our social attention over space.

Villani C, DAscenzo S, Scerrati E, Ricciardelli P, Nicoletti R, Lugli L Front Psychol. 2022; 13:923558.

PMID: 35992481 PMC: 9386249. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.923558.

No Influence of Emotional Faces or Autistic Traits on Gaze-Cueing in General Population.

Uono S, Egashira Y, Hayashi S, Takada M, Ukezono M, Okada T Front Psychol. 2022; 13:864116.

PMID: 35558687 PMC: 9088812. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.864116.

Effects of facial expression and gaze interaction on brain dynamics during a working memory task in preschool children.

Kashihara K, Matsuda Y PLoS One. 2022; 17(4):e0266713.

PMID: 35482742 PMC: 9049575. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0266713.

References

Putman P, Hermans E, van Honk J . Anxiety meets fear in perception of dynamic expressive gaze. Emotion. 2006; 6(1):94-102. DOI: 10.1037/1528-3542.6.1.94. View

Rhodes G, Addison B, Jeffery L, Ewbank M, Calder A . Facial expressions of threat influence perceived gaze direction in 8 year-olds. PLoS One. 2012; 7(11):e49317. PMC: 3498150. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0049317. View

Fox E, Mathews A, Calder A, Yiend J . Anxiety and sensitivity to gaze direction in emotionally expressive faces. Emotion. 2007; 7(3):478-86. PMC: 2757723. DOI: 10.1037/1528-3542.7.3.478. View

Brosch T, Pourtois G, Sander D, Vuilleumier P . Additive effects of emotional, endogenous, and exogenous attention: behavioral and electrophysiological evidence. Neuropsychologia. 2011; 49(7):1779-87. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.02.056. View

Holmes A, Mogg K, de Fockert J, Nielsen M, Bradley B . Electrophysiological evidence for greater attention to threat when cognitive control resources are depleted. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2013; 14(2):827-35. DOI: 10.3758/s13415-013-0212-4. View

Mathews A, Fox E, Yiend J, Calder A . The face of fear: Effects of eye gaze and emotion on visual attention. Vis cogn. 2007; 10(7):823-835. PMC: 1855005. DOI: 10.1080/13506280344000095. View

Ohlsen G, van Zoest W, van Vugt M . Gender and facial dominance in gaze cuing: emotional context matters in the eyes that we follow. PLoS One. 2013; 8(4):e59471. PMC: 3616071. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0059471. View

Carver C, Harmon-Jones E . Anger is an approach-related affect: evidence and implications. Psychol Bull. 2009; 135(2):183-204. DOI: 10.1037/a0013965. View

Ristic J, Friesen C, Kingstone A . Are eyes special? It depends on how you look at it. Psychon Bull Rev. 2002; 9(3):507-13. DOI: 10.3758/bf03196306. View

10.

Cohen N, Henik A . Do irrelevant emotional stimuli impair or improve executive control?. Front Integr Neurosci. 2012; 6:33. PMC: 3376948. DOI: 10.3389/fnint.2012.00033. View

11.

Holmes A, Mogg K, Monje Garcia L, Bradley B . Neural activity associated with attention orienting triggered by gaze cues: A study of lateralized ERPs. Soc Neurosci. 2010; 5(3):285-95. DOI: 10.1080/17470910903422819. View

12.

Tipples J . Orienting to eye gaze and face processing. J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform. 2005; 31(5):843-56. DOI: 10.1037/0096-1523.31.5.843. View

13.

Dawel A, Palermo R, OKearney R, Irons J, McKone E . Fearful faces drive gaze-cueing and threat bias effects in children on the lookout for danger. Dev Sci. 2014; 18(2):219-31. DOI: 10.1111/desc.12203. View

14.

Lavie N . Distracted and confused?: selective attention under load. Trends Cogn Sci. 2005; 9(2):75-82. DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2004.12.004. View

15.

Rao K, Baddeley A . Raven's matrices and working memory: a dual-task approach. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2013; 66(10):1881-7. DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2013.828314. View

16.

Kanske P . On the influence of emotion on conflict processing. Front Integr Neurosci. 2012; 6:42. PMC: 3410615. DOI: 10.3389/fnint.2012.00042. View

17.

Fox E, Lester V, Russo R, Bowles R, Pichler A, Dutton K . Facial Expressions of Emotion: Are Angry Faces Detected More Efficiently?. Cogn Emot. 2007; 14(1):61-92. PMC: 1839771. DOI: 10.1080/026999300378996. View

18.

Picardo R, Baron A, Anderson A, Todd R . Tuning to the Positive: Age-Related Differences in Subjective Perception of Facial Emotion. PLoS One. 2016; 11(1):e0145643. PMC: 4703339. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0145643. View

19.

Pecchinenda A, Pes M, Ferlazzo F, Zoccolotti P . The combined effect of gaze direction and facial expression on cueing spatial attention. Emotion. 2008; 8(5):628-34. DOI: 10.1037/a0013437. View

20.

Bayless S, Glover M, Taylor M, Itier R . Is it in the eyes? Dissociating the role of emotion and perceptual features of emotionally expressive faces in modulating orienting to eye gaze. Vis cogn. 2014; 19(4):483-510. PMC: 4072640. DOI: 10.1080/13506285.2011.552895. View