Surprising Threats Accelerate Conscious Perception

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Visual Perception
• Psychology

Background:

• Prior expectations influence conscious awareness, with expected stimuli perceived faster.
• Biologically relevant stimuli, like fearful faces, are prioritized for perception.
• The interplay between expectation, emotion, and perception, particularly for unexpected stimuli, remains less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how prior expectations modulate the conscious perception of neutral and fearful faces.
• To explore the role of trait anxiety in the interaction between expectation and emotional perception.
• To examine the neural underpinnings of processing unexpected emotional stimuli.

Main Methods:

• Two experiments utilizing breaking continuous flash suppression (bCFS) to control stimulus visibility.
• Measurement of response times to neutral and fearful faces under varying expectation conditions.
• Electroencephalography (EEG) to analyze early sensory encoding processes.

Main Results:

• Prior expectations for neutral faces accelerated responses.
• Prior expectations for fearful faces decelerated responses, indicating a unique interaction.
• This interaction was more pronounced in individuals with higher trait anxiety.
• EEG data revealed that prediction errors expedite sensory encoding of fearful faces.

Conclusions:

• Unexpected fearful stimuli gain prioritized conscious access, supporting a survival hypothesis.
• This heightened prioritization is particularly evident in individuals with high trait anxiety.
• Perception is dynamically shaped by both expectation and biological relevance, especially for threat detection.