Angry Faces Capture Attention But Do They Hold It? Laura Jenkins (Supervisor: Dr Paul Engelhardt) MRes Psychology 2012, Department of Psychology, Northumbria University Introduction The Anger Superiority Effect was first reported by Hansen and Hansen (1988). Since then, literature has looked at and highlighted the importance of angry faces, including the proposal that angry faces are detected quicker when being displayed in crowds (Fox et al., 2000; Tipples, Atkinson, & Young, 2002). Pinkham et al. (2010) investigated the Anger Superiority Effect using real life facial images set out in grids, whereas Fox et al. (2000) used faces set out in circles. The current research extended the research of Pinkham et al. (2010) and looked at participants eye movements to address the research question: Angry faces capture attention but do they hold it?’. Method Facial images were taken from Young, Perrett, Calder, Sprengelmeyer, and Ekman (2002) and The Nottingham Face Database. Design and Participants 13 participants from the area of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne were recruited through an email advertisement. IV = emotion type with three levels (i.e., angry, happy, other). DVs’ = 1) First saccade (eye movement to a face) . 2) The section of the screen that participants. focus on (e.g. face 1, 2, 3 or 4). 3) Score on memory task. Procedure Head movements were minimized using a chin rest. Each participant completed 60 trials (30 critical, 30 filler). An example is shown in Figure 1. The entire experimental session lasted 30 minutes. Participants were shown a fixation cross, then an encoding image and then a response image. They had to decide if the response image was in the same position as on the encoding image previously shown. Each array contained four faces. Where an angry face was presented, a happy face was presented opposite. The final two faces (diagonal) were either neutral expressions or other emotions. Analysis and Results The mean first fixation time showed a marginal effect of emotion F(2,22) = 2.78, p = .08. The angry faces were fixated more quickly than the happy faces (1220 vs. 1315) ,t(11) = 2.01, p = .07, and the angry faces were fixated more quickly than the other faces 1220 vs 1290), t(11) = 2.02, p = .068. Please see Figure 3 for a graphical representation. The mean total dwell times also showed a marginal effect of emotion F(2,22) = 2.57, p = .099. Participants spent more time looking at the angry face compared to the other faces, t(11) = 2.23, p < .05. Please see Figure 2 for a graphical representation. None of the other paired comparisons were significant. Mean Dwell Times (ms) Mean First Fixation Times (ms) Figure 2: Graph showing the mean total dwell times, in seconds for angry, happy and other emotions. Figure 3: Graph showing the mean first fixation times, in milliseconds, for angry, happy and other emotions. Aims/Rationale The study aimed to investigate the Anger Superiority Effect. Incorporation of eye tracking (as Pinkham et al. , 2010, suggested) because past literature did not focus on this method of data collection. This helped answer the question of holding attention or avoiding the angry face. Used the methodologies of Pinkham et al. (2010) and Fox et al. (2000) to help create similar stimuli (and set of images) for this study – these methods have been shown to work! Hypothesis/Prediction The mean first fixation times will be lower for the angry faces (fixated quicker than other emotions). This will indicate that participants find the angry face quicker than the other emotions. The dwell time for the angry faces will be shorter for the angry faces, indicating that participants are avoiding the angry face after locating it. Discussion and Future Directions A slight Anger Superiority Effect was present in the data. However, this could be described as more of an ‘anger pop out’ rather than Anger Superiority. Participants' were quicker to locate the angry face but did not avoid the angry face and spent more time fixating on the angry emotions (shown by the mean dwell times). Results still gave support for the background literature (Tipples, Atkinson, & Young, 2002) in suggesting that angry faces can be detected quicker in a crowd situation. This was shown by the first fixation times. Future research ideas include: 1) Use arrays of different sizes (6, 8 and 9) to represent a crowd situation more clearly. 2) Applications to a clinical population – those who have a brain injury or suffer prosopagnosia. 3) Create a new set of colour photos to increase ecological validity. A comparison between an older set (Ekman’s) and a new set could be made. Fixation Cross Encoding Phase Memory Response 2000ms Figure 1: Visual display of method – an example of one trial. 5000ms References Fox, E., Lester, V., Russo, R., Bowles, R.J., Pichler, A., and Dutton, K. (2000). Facial Expressions of Emotion: Are Angry Faces Detected More Efficiently. Cognition and Emotion, 14(1), 61-92. Hansen, C.H., and Hansen, R.D. (1988). Finding The Face In The Crowd: An Anger Superiority Effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 917-924. Pinkham, A.E., Griffin, M., Baron, R., Sasson, N.J., and Gur, R.C. (2010). The Face In The Crowd Effect: Anger Superiority When Using Real Faces and Mulitple Identities. Emotion, 10(1), 141-146. Tipples, J., Atkinson, A.P., and Young, A.W. (2002). The Eyebrow Frown: A Salient Social Signal. Emotion, 2(3), 288-296. Young, A., Perrett, D., Calder, A., Sprengelmeyer, R., and Ekman, P. (2002). Facial Expressions of Emotion – Stimuli and Tests (FEEST). London: Thames Valley Test Company.