The effects of facial expressions on gaze-triggered attention without awareness

Abstract

The gaze of another individual triggers a reflexive attentional shift. The e#ect occurs even when gaze cues are presented subliminally. Moreover, gaze-directed attention is influenced by fear- ful faces. The present study investigates whether facial expression influences gaze-triggered atten- tion when gaze cues are presented subliminally. Photographs of fearful or neutral faces with their gaze directed to the left or the right were presented for 17 ms at the center of the visual field fol- lowed by a masking stimulus. A target then appeared unpredictably on the left or the right. The par- ticipantsῑ task was to localize the target as soon as possible. The results of Experiment 1 indicate that the e#ect of facial expression on gaze-triggered attention was not significant, possibly because the masking stimuli established a cognitive set toward face processing in the participants. The re- sults of Experiment 2 using di#erent cues and masking stimuli indicate that reaction times were sig- nificantly shorter when a fearful gaze was directed towards the location of the target, whereas this e#ect was not found for a neutral gaze. These findings indicate that facial expression infl- uences gaze-triggered attention without awareness.