The eyebrow frown: a salient social signal.
Seven experiments investigated the finding that threatening schematic faces are detected more quickly than nonthreatening faces. Threatening faces with v-shaped eyebrows (angry and scheming expressions) were detected more quickly than nonthreatening faces with inverted v-shaped eyebrows (happy and sad expressions). In contrast to the hypothesis that these effects were due to perceptual features unrelated to the face, no advantage was found for v-shaped eyebrows presented in a nonfacelike object. Furthermore, the addition of internal facial features (the eyes, or the nose and mouth) was necessary to produce the detection advantage for faces with v-shaped eyebrows. Overall, the results are interpreted as showing that the v-shaped eyebrow configuration affords easy detection, but only when other internal facial features are present.
Tipples
Jason
J
Department of Psychology, The University of Hull, England. j.tipples@hull.ac.uk
Atkinson
Anthony P
AP
Young
Andrew W
AW
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D000786:Anger; D005138:Eyebrows; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D012718:Set, Psychology; D012938:Social Perception