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More than just another face in the crowd: superior detection of threatening facial expressions in children and adults

More than just another face in the crowd: superior detection of threatening facial expressions in... Threatening facial expressions can signal the approach of someone or something potentially dangerous. Past research has established that adults have an attentional bias for angry faces, visually detecting their presence more quickly than happy or neutral faces. Two new findings are reported here. First, evidence is presented that young children share this attentional bias. In five experiments, young children and adults were asked to find a picture of a target face among an array of eight distracter faces. Both age groups detected threat‐relevant faces – angry and frightened – more rapidly than non‐threat‐relevant faces (happy and sad). Second, evidence is presented that both adults and children have an attentional bias for negative stimuli overall. All negative faces were detected more quickly than positive ones in both age groups. As the first evidence that young children exhibit the same superior detection of threatening facial expressions as adults, this research provides important support for the existence of an evolved attentional bias for threatening stimuli. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Developmental Science Wiley

More than just another face in the crowd: superior detection of threatening facial expressions in children and adults

Developmental Science , Volume 12 (2) – Jan 1, 2009

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References (36)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 Wiley Subscription Services
ISSN
1363-755X
eISSN
1467-7687
DOI
10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00767.x
pmid
19143803
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Threatening facial expressions can signal the approach of someone or something potentially dangerous. Past research has established that adults have an attentional bias for angry faces, visually detecting their presence more quickly than happy or neutral faces. Two new findings are reported here. First, evidence is presented that young children share this attentional bias. In five experiments, young children and adults were asked to find a picture of a target face among an array of eight distracter faces. Both age groups detected threat‐relevant faces – angry and frightened – more rapidly than non‐threat‐relevant faces (happy and sad). Second, evidence is presented that both adults and children have an attentional bias for negative stimuli overall. All negative faces were detected more quickly than positive ones in both age groups. As the first evidence that young children exhibit the same superior detection of threatening facial expressions as adults, this research provides important support for the existence of an evolved attentional bias for threatening stimuli.

Journal

Developmental ScienceWiley

Published: Jan 1, 2009

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