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Updated: Jun 4, 2026

Measuring Attentional Biases for Threat in Children and Adults
Published on: October 19, 2014
Emotionally meaningful targets enhance orienting triggered by a fearful gazing face
Chris Kelland Friesen1, Kimberly M Halvorson, Reiko Graham
1Department of Psychology and Center for Visual Neuroscience, North Dakota State University Dept. 2765, PO Box 6050, Fargo, North Dakota 581086050, USA. chris.friesen@ndsu.edu
Abstract:
Studies investigating the effect of emotional expression on spatial orienting to a gazed-at location have produced mixed results. The present study investigated the role of affective context in the integration of emotion processing and gaze-triggered orienting. In three experiments, a face gazed nonpredictively to the left or right, and then its expression became fearful or happy. Participants identified (Experiments 1 and 2) or detected (Experiment 3) a peripheral target presented 225 or 525 ms after the gaze cue onset. In Experiments 1 and 3 the targets were either threatening (a snarling dog) or nonthreatening (a smiling baby); in Experiment 2 the targets were neutral. With emotionally-valenced targets, the gaze-cuing effect was larger when the face was fearful compared to happy--but only with the longer cue-target interval. With neutral targets, there was no interaction between gaze and expression. Our results indicate that a meaningful context optimizes attentional integration of gaze and expression information.
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