In the eye of the beholder: Reduced threat-bias and increased gaze-imitation towards reward in relation to trait anger
Journal Article
2012
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PLoS One
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Public Library of Science
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University of Cape Town
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Abstract
The gaze of a fearful face silently signals a potential threat's location, while the happy-gaze communicates the location of impending reward. Imitating such gaze-shifts is an automatic form of social interaction that promotes survival of individual and group. Evidence from gaze-cueing studies suggests that covert allocation of attention to another individual's gaze-direction is facilitated when threat is communicated and further enhanced by trait anxiety. We used novel eye-tracking techniques to assess whether dynamic fearful and happy facial expressions actually facilitate automatic gaze-imitation. We show that this actual gaze-imitation effect is stronger when threat is signaled, but not further enhanced by trait anxiety. Instead, trait anger predicts facilitated gaze-imitation to reward, and to reward compared to threat. These results agree with an increasing body of evidence on trait anger sensitivity to reward.
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Reference:
Terburg, D., Aarts, H., Putman, P., & Van Honk, J. (2012). In the eye of the beholder: Reduced threat-bias and increased gaze-imitation towards reward in relation to trait anger. PloS one, 7(2). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0031373